Three giant auto companies and two Silicon Valley technology companies have linked up in what is possibly the biggest-ever online project — a bazaar for auto components and other supplies. I stopped by the headquarters of the newly formed alliance, which is spinning off a separate company in suburban Detroit.
More in my Tuesday column.
Microsoft’s Latest Hired Gun: Ralph Reed
Like any corporate wrongdoer with almost infinitely deep pockets, Microsoft is spreading money and influence (Mercury News) all over Washington and the state capitals. If it can’t win in court, the company wants to win in Congress.
But it may take infinite shamelessness for a company that is so progressive with its own employees — and in the causes Bill Gates supports when he’s giving his own money — to be paying big money to the poster child for the forces of intolerance, ultra-right maven Ralph Reed. Reed’s job, according to various news reports, is to lobby George W. Bush, the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee.
Of course, it’s possible to argue that Reed is just another lobbyist, no longer executive director of the Christian Coalition. He’s just another hired gun, and therefore a reasonable ally. So Microsoft is merely following the modern standard of behavior — what’s acceptable is what you can get away with.
Plainly, Microsoft sees this case as a fight to the death. On the other side is nothing all that important, just the rules of competition in the Information Age, and maybe the rule of law itself.
GOP: We’re Not Abusing Domain Name System
Last last week I pointed to a charge by activist Jim Warren that the Republican party was misusing the domain-name system.
That prompted this rebuttal from Richard Diamond, who works for Richard Armey, majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives.