Microsoft Buys U.S. Mint
Microsoft Corporation today announced plans to buy the Philadelphia Mint from the United States government. Final details of the transaction were hammered out in an all night bargaining session. In an effort to appease regulators, Microsoft gave a copy of Windows NT and a box of paper clips to Novell.
Microsoft said it intends to print money in direct competition with the US Government. Microsoft
chairman, Bill Gates, declared, "The Government has no vision and we intend to eventually
take over all operations." The official announcement was made by Microsoft spokesman, Brad
Silverberg, who showed reporters an alpha version of
the currency Microsoft will release next year. The currency, called simply "Money" (patent
pending) bears a striking resemblance to U.S. currency . When questioned about this, Silverberg
stated that the U.S. Government had obviously copied the design. Silverberg alleged that this
was constantly happening to Microsoft, citing Apple's theft of the Windows look and feel, and
Stac's pilfering of on-the-fly disk compression as only two examples.
Gates said the acquisition was made in order to move closer to his grand vision of "Money always at my fingertips." Gates further stated that the move to 32 bit operating systems would make it difficult "for the lemms, uh, I mean, users to continue throwing money at Microsoft in ever increasing amounts." "This (acquisition) will make it unnecessary for our customers to continue to struggle with the challenge of actually buying and installing software," continued Gates.
Response within the industry and government was immediate. All major ISV's appeared at the press conference and announced support for Money. Steve Gibson called the acquisition "the most earth shattering event in the history of the world, without question." Brian Livingston said this was the most exciting news "since cousin Pee Wee got his own television show." Ed Bott declared that PC Computing would dedicate its next twelve issues to the new Money and said we would "all be using it soon." Jim Seymour stated that "the miraculous Money is now the standard for currency in the United States."
May 2002
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