All that talk about Microsoft sizing up the top five US cable companies like so many piggybanks, capable of taking its spare change and turning the industry into another MS outlet, isn't exactly music to the ears of Rupert Murdoch. The News Corp. chairman, who sits at the controls of much of the world's media and cable access, is, in fact, nervously feeling the Microsoftian pinch, AP reports.
"Everybody in the communications industry is paranoid of Microsoft, including me," Murdoch told reporters following an annual shareholders meeting of British Sky Broadcasting in London. News Corp., a mega-player in the cable industry, owns a 40 percent stake in BSkyB, as well as almost an alphabet's worth of other satellite broadcasting services around the world, the Fox TV networks, former 20th Century Fox movies, and more.
But Murdoch is apparently worried that Bill Gates could gain an even tighter grip on the cable market and will force the industry to adopt the likes of WebTV and Windows CE as it moves to make Net access over cable the norm.
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Bombay or bust: In a flanking maneuver on the front lines of the PC-vs.-NC war, Oracle has challenged the government of India to promote the network computer.
Oracle and its subsidiary Network Computer Inc. have proposed a national think-tank made up of academia, industry, and the government to bring India, which is already teeming with software engineers, into the advanced computer age.
Microsoft, Oracle's arch-rival, has also been going after India, which has been emerging as one of the most important software countries, initially as a backshop for Western companies, and increasingly as a market for finished computer goods. (12.Nov.97)
Reuters contributed to this report.
