[VAXman(Admin)]

Somebody posted this for me on the Marillion on-line forum and I thought I'd share it here.

Redmond, Seattle. A screen saver of a roaring log fire flickers on a huge LCD monitor perched on a wide expanse of mahogany desk. Bathed in its glow, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and his PA, Atkins, are drinking eggnog - whatever eggnog is, Americans always seem to drink it at Christmas.

"Hell of a year!"
"Hell of a year, sir!"
"And all the big news happened in January, didn't it?"
"Er, yes sir."
"Windows Vista launches, The 'big wow'."
"Oh... I see sir, yes sir."
"You say 'yes, sir' as if you mean 'no sir'?"
"No sir,"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, sir."
"Goddamit. Why don't people like Vista? What was wrong with the big wow?"
"Nothing sir, it's just not quite the wow effect we were after."
"And what are we doing about that? Was there a problem with the marketing? I spent a fortune on it."
"No sir, it was more a problem with the product. It didn't quite live up to the 'wow' expectations."
"But it looks like Mac OS X, comes in six versions and it's about to get a service pack. What more do people want? Are we planning a new ad campaign?"
"No sir. The old one was fine. We didn't have time to make any significant improvements to the software so we've just decided to redefine the industry standard of 'wow'."
"Good thinking."
"Yes, sir. Our lawyers have been busy since February. I'm happy to say it's been successfully redefined, sir."
"Excellent, what does 'wow' mean now?"
"More like 'Hmm'."
"The big 'Hmm'. I like it. Has it had any effect on sales?"
"No."
"Hmm."
"That's the spirit, sir."