The Chronicles of John Ominor

- by John Ominor, The Inhuman

I am John Ominor, The Inhuman. Truly The Age is upon us. OS/2 Warp 4.0, an operating system that has been used in sentences featuring adjectives such as "beleaguered" or "hapless", has recently enjoyed a renewed notice in the attention of the press, thanks to the computer world's infatuation with the Network Computer. Once again, the industry shifts its focus, and once again, leading the way, an oak amongst the saplings, stands John Ominor, the one true visionary, who in his infinite wisdom, endorses the use of OS/2 in these exciting new frontiers ranging from thin clients to hand held computers.

Currently, the mighty Intel empire is being besieged by Digital and Cyrix for patent infringements. Who amongst you have not marveled at Intel's ability to make such quantum leaps in processing performance in so short an amount of time? Indeed. It has been stated that Intel, in order to improve upon its technology, created a hybrid chip combining elements of CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) and RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) processor designs to create its vaunted Pentium line of processors.

Can it be that these improvements were actually borrowed -- unintentionally, of course -- from Digital, one of the leaders in RISC technology?

Notice the nontrivial efforts of Microsoft to create a line of Windows-based terminals for public consumption. An effort so grand that the Redmond Monopoly has allied itself with Citrix, a company which is truly approaching Herculean levels of stupidity, to enhance the single most overrated operating system the Earth has ever known (Windows NT 4.0) with multiuser abilities. Will Citrix never learn?

In addition, to the surprise of no one save the buzzing Windows gnats of comp.os.os2.advocacy, it has been announced that there will be no version three of the UNIX version of Internet Explorer. Add to this the fact that future enhancements of Microsoft's COM and DCOM technology have been postponed. The plagues continue as Microsoft releases yet another patch for Windows NT 4.0 to prevent TCP/IP packets from crashing this "uncrashable" operating system -- a security bug that, interestingly enough did not crash Windows 95. Unfortunately, Windows 95's patch is to be delayed further as the Windows 3.x version of this crash has no known shipping date.

"Surely, Mighty Ominor, there must be a method to this stream of consciousness that plagues yon written lore?"

But of course.

There are many foolish or disenchanted individuals that believe Microsoft is an unstoppable juggernaut with unlimited resources. After all, did they not purchase WebTV for well over four hundred twenty million dollars? Did they not just have a record earning quarter from the sales of Office 97, an office suite that has a well deserved reputation for torturing information system managers and home users alike? Yes, they performed these feats, yet they cannot complete DCOM, the technology that was going to "finish" CORBA. ActiveX, their flagship technology, falls to the wayside before their own Java attempts, betas are delayed time and time again, while promised software such as the UNIX version of the Internet Explorer goes unfulfilled.

Mark well, this day. This is the day history will record as the Fall of the Empire. What the industry is now observing are the limits of Microsoft's abilities. Even as IBM and OS/2 claim increasing amounts of positive coverage in terms of Bluebird and Deep Blue's impressive victory (a victory that reinforces the chess mastery of Gary Kasparov), Microsoft is being attacked from all sides for security concerns and difficult Office suite upgrade attempts.

Remember, only Ominor is not bound by physical laws, only The Inhuman is without limits. Let us observe the first cracks in the monolith...

Gary Kasparov impresses John Ominor. He is a human so talented that it took the computer might of a nigh-weather predicting, parallel multiprocessing, supercomputer, an entire programming team, an outside United States chess Grand Master and several years to create a machine capable of defeating, but not humbling Kasparov.

Now, perhaps Kasparov and Deep Blue are reading to face The Inhuman in the ultimate expression of reason... X-Wing versus Tie-Fighter?

In conclusion, this day marks the re-release of FORTRESS Ominor. All sentients are invited to partake of the treasures of the Inner Chambers of Ominor's Lair.

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