From: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 1996 12:45:05 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Did Sun get a sweetheart deal?
In-Reply-To: <199610040001.RAA15595@ohio.chromatic.com>
Message-ID: <v03007801ae7a2c50d26f@[207.167.93.63]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 5:01 PM -0700 10/3/96, Ernest Hua wrote:
>So why did Sun cave in?
>
>Ern
>
>-------- From San Jose Mercury: "Good Morning Silicon Valley"
>
>NASA has its day in the Sun
>
>  Sun Microsystems Inc. said Wednesday it received two contracts from
>  NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center worth a total of $100 million. The
>  Mountain View-based company said the pact calls for software
>  development and the design about 34,000 computer-aided engineering
>  and design workstations. NASA will use the workstations to design
>  integrated circuits.

If this theory is true, look for Apple to see some reprieves in government
conversions away from Macs towards Windows.

(To those who don't follow the Mac market, the weekly trade mag, "MacWeek,"
reports frequently on various government agencies deciding to replace Macs
with Windows machines. Users of Macs are often freaked out by this, of
course, and write letters urging the government to reconsider. If Ernest
Hua's theory is even slightly on-target, there may be some reversals of
this "everybody needs to be using Windows" government edict.)

--Tim May

(By the way, I've added some new stuff to my .sig. The apparent infighting,
with Jim Bidzos trashing NSA and IBM, is delicious. Maybe Jim will withdraw
his support. Of course, he's got multiple tens of millions of bucks riding
on the balance, and there's that threat I reported on a couple of years
ago, where an NSA guy said they could always run him over in the parking
lot if he didn't play ball.)


"The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM
that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology."
[NYT, 1996-10-02]
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."