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Microsoft Media Movies The Matrix

Gates Comdex Keynote Shows Plans, Matrix Spoof 803

Posted by simoniker from the he-knows-kung-fu dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to Eweek, Bill Gates' keynote speech at this year's Comdex showed Microsoft's 'focus on security, spam and [the] tablet PC', including a new version of its Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server, an extension of the SmartScreen Technology for spam prevention, and the next version of the Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system. But the showstopper was a filmed spoof of The Matrix (screencaps available here), with Gates and Steve Ballmer as Morpheus and Neo respectively, and including a jab at Linux."
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Gates Comdex Keynote Shows Plans, Matrix Spoof More

Gates Comdex Keynote Shows Plans, Matrix Spoof

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  • It all makes sense now (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:02PM (#7497272)
    Gates plans to trap humanity in his own MS Matrix. Of course, there will be bugs in the system allowing people like Neo to pop-up and hack in.

    • Re:It all makes sense now (Score:5, Funny)

      by Kethinov ( 636034 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:05PM (#7497314) Homepage Journal
      You don't need a godlike Neo to hack a pathetic Windows-based Matrix...

    • Re:It all makes sense now (Score:5, Funny)

      by Frymaster ( 171343 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:12PM (#7497383) Homepage Journal
      Gates plans to trap humanity in his own MS Matrix.

      wrong. gates is smith! did you see the market share that guy had by the end of the series?

    • Re:It all makes sense now (Score:5, Funny)

      by Mr Smidge ( 668120 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:14PM (#7497408) Homepage
      Ooh, ooh.. is SCO the architect, creator of the Matrix?
    • As the little kid says, "there is no security".

    • Please don't make Clippy an agent (Score:5, Funny)

      by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:45PM (#7497697) Journal

      Gates plans to trap humanity in his own MS Matrix.

      Let's just pray Agent Clippy doesn't learn how to copy himself!

      GMD

    • Re:It all makes sense now (Score:5, Funny)

      by DataPath ( 1111 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @09:20PM (#7498474)
      Actually, I think ol' Bill looks eerily like Cigarette Smoking Man from X-Files, with those glasses. I think a counter-spoof against Microsoft would be quite in order. The MS-SCO connection, aliens trying to undermine society and technology by force-feeding the world substandard software with draconian EULAs.

  • Still Better (Score:5, Funny)

    by The_Rippa ( 181699 ) * on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:04PM (#7497306)
    Hmm...still looks better than Revolutions.

    • Streaming Video Links (Score:5, Informative)

      by securitas ( 411694 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:31PM (#7497581) Homepage Journal

      Courtesy of the Rejected Post Machine

      2003-11-17 08:56:08 Comdex 2003 Opens with Bill Gates Talking Security (articles,comdex) (rejected)

      Bill Gates delivered a keynote speech on Sunday evening to open COMDEX [microsoft.com], as he has done for the last 20 years. Interesting parts of his security-heavy speech include Microsoft's research budget, with Gates saying that this year Microsoft 'will spend $6.8 billion in R&D, that's double what we spent five years ago;' admitting that tools which scan for stack or buffer overruns and other security problems 'are tools that we're not applying in our development process;' that security is 'certainly the largest thing that we're doing;' but waffled on security/patch management with this statement: 'Now, to really provide security, the software has to be kept up to date and the software updates have to be clearly partitioned so that things that are just optional and new features are kept separate from the hopefully increasingly rare updates that relate to security issues that have really thoroughly been checked to make sure they won't cause any regression.' Gates continued on about Trustworthy Computing, security, spam, firewalls, policy controls, XML, 'Seamless Computing' and the long-delayed Longhorn. There was also a parody of the Matrix starring Bill Gates as Morpheus and Steve Ballmer as Neo, with the Matrix represented by Linux-selling IBM consultants and the Real World as Windows-based. You can read the full text of Bill Gates' speech [microsoft.com] from COMDEX [comdex.com] (with demos from three other Microsofties) or view the entire presentation online [microsoft.com] (56kbps low [cwusa.tv] | 100 kbps med [cwusa.tv] | 300 kbps high [cwusa.tv]) for the next week. A warning though: the speech is over an hour long.

      • Re:Streaming Video Links (Score:5, Informative)

        by rabtech ( 223758 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:56PM (#7497775) Homepage
        A note: This presentation (linked to in the parent) does NOT INCLUDE the matrix spoof video stuff. The presentation just blanks out with a generic "we can't show you this" message for several minutes.
        • I think I speak for most people: Where is the torrent for the video then!?!?!?

          • Re:Streaming Video Links (Score:5, Funny)

            by lobsterGun ( 415085 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @09:39PM (#7498566)
            I think I speak for more people when I say,"Who gives a shit?"

            • Re:Streaming Video Links (Score:5, Interesting)

              by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @11:25PM (#7499178) Homepage
              I think I speak for more people when I say,"Who gives a shit?"

              You don't speak for me. I think this is great. Why? Because it means Linux has finally entered the collective consciousness.

              What the fuck am I talking about? Parody only works when the audience knows exactly what you're talking about with just the subtlest hints. The spoof didn't need to spell out what Linux is. It was assumed knowledge. Microsoft assumed that the audience knew that Larry Ewing's Tux logo is the Linux mascot, that the audience knew what Linux is and what Linux does, that the audience knew that Linux is competing with Microsoft, and so on.

              It is great news that Microsoft acknowledges Linux in this way. It shows that Linux has become big enough to not just attract attention from Microsoft (the Halloween documents demonstrated that) but that everybody in the computing industry is expected to know about Linux by now.

              Woohoo. I still remember when this site was called Chips and Dips. I remember the cheering and stomping of feet when the first paper magazine ran an article on Linux. Now Linux inspires spoofs from one of the world's biggest software companies! This is a great day for Linux.

  • How many times... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SniperPuppy ( 443143 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:04PM (#7497308)
    How many times can Bill get on stage, claim that "Microsoft is refocusing its effors into security", and be believable? I mean, they supposedly shifted all these resources into fixing the holes in Windows, and, well, we all know how well THAT went. Now we're supposed to roll over, forget about that, and say, "Oh, okay. He means it this time. I believe him."?

    • Re:How many times... (Score:5, Informative)

      by swissmonkey ( 535779 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:25PM (#7497513) Homepage
      Let's look at the security issues for November:

      http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/?url=/ te chnet/security/bulletin/MS03-048.asp

      WS03 is affected, but vulnerability is mitigated by the fact that IE runs in enhanced security mode.

      http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/?url=/ te chnet/security/bulletin/MS03-049.asp

      Doesn't affect WS03

      http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/?url=/ te chnet/security/bulletin/MS02-050.asp

      Doesn't affect WS03

      http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/?url=/ te chnet/security/bulletin/MS03-050.asp

      Doesn't affect Office 2003

      http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/?url=/ te chnet/security/bulletin/MS03-051.asp

      Doesn't affect Windows Server 2003 and Windows 2000 SP4

      So as you can see, the latest versions of Windows & Office are definitely more secure
  • Then the glitches would be a feature
    Agent Smith would need to be updated ever 2 weeks to avoid the latest expolit which would allow Neo to destroy him
    It would have to be rebooted every month to free up the memory leaks

    Rus

  • Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bob Vila's Hammer ( 614758 ) * on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:05PM (#7497316) Homepage Journal
    I didn't know the Borg had a sense of humor.

    • Re:Hmmm... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, it's pretty typical for company meetings to feature a video like this one. Those are for internal consumption only, though, as they tend to bash pretty much everybody. They're almost always humorous, and occasionally absolutely hysterical.

    • Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)

      by ShadowDrake ( 588020 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:14PM (#7497403)
      I never understood that about the Borg. Presumably they would have assimilated *some* marketing staff over the years, enabling them to come up with a better slogan than "Resistance is Futile"... perhaps "Assimilation makes you fresh and sexually appealing, while saving money on long distance!"

  • Man oh man! (Score:2, Funny)

    by macshune ( 628296 )
    What I wouldn't pay to be Ballmer's stunt double and accidentally pop Bill Gates in the nose!

    And props to microsoft having the matrix run off of linux. Guess that makes sense. Can't have the matrix crashing because it feels like it! People's lives would be at stake!

    Microsoft: Demonstrating through movie parodies that Linux is a better choice than Windows for system-critical environments

  • ASEJASLDGADADSG:LJSD!!@ (Score:4, Funny)

    by DAQ42 ( 210845 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:06PM (#7497323)
    Now that is just wrong.
    Wrong I tell you.

    So very, very wrong that I cannot begin to fathom just how craptastically crappy this crap is.

    Imagine. Using a popular culture movie to debase your competition and promote your crappy vaporware. Where do I sign up for this crap? I want off your lists. All of them. And your parent company lists too. No, don't try and sell me your product by linking it to a popular movie reference, please. Let it stand on it's own merit. Oh, you say it's all smoke and mirrors and you don't have the features I want? Too bad, no money for you, bye now.

    Grrr.

  • Ballmer as Neo? (Score:4, Funny)

    by EmCeeHawking ( 720424 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:07PM (#7497327)
    Gates and Steve Ballmer as Morpheus and Neo respectively

    Um, I thought Ballmer was the fat one.

    I can much more easily picture Morpheus dancing around the Zion cave shouting "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!" ad naseum, than Neo.

    • Re:Ballmer as Neo? (Score:5, Funny)

      by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @08:18PM (#7497948)
      I can much more easily picture Morpheus dancing around the Zion cave shouting "DEVELOPERS! DEVELOPERS!" ad naseum, than Neo.

      No kidding. Neo'd be jumping around yelling, "Woah......Woah......Woah." Developers IS a multi-syllable word, after all.

    • Re:Ballmer as Neo? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tsali ( 594389 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @10:27PM (#7498827)
      I imagined more sweat - like with all that rain coming down at the end for Ballmer....

      And the innovation pill? I have some explanations...
      - It's a placebo.
      - You can only take the pill after reading the EULA that's was in the package.
      - The package itself is flawed and tampered with because some script kiddie got into it first.
      - The pill would advertize for other pills, mostly blue and purple. ... there is nothing more pathetic that seeing two overly rich CEO's attempt to hip themselves up to pop culture. I'll take my glasses-half-full 401K presentations, my Initech pep rallies, and all that other crap over this. Nice to know that part of the war chest is going towards craptastic special effects and parody instead of, I don't know, hiring some cheap labor to look for buffer overflows.

      Two thumbs down. Even Keanu can act better than Gates.

  • Bad comparison (Score:4, Funny)

    by T-Kir ( 597145 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:07PM (#7497329) Homepage

    I mean come on!!! A more appropriate spoof would be that those two were the virus version Smith (crikey, I'm writing this now and listening to the Animatrix OST and Red Pill Blue Pill is on!!!)... yeah Longhorn would have to be the Matrix code, constraining humanity and the problem is choice: which MS don't want people to have.

    Plus, the Matrix is due for a critical crash, hmm the parrallels are endless...

  • Gates as Morpheus. Can someone please stab my minds eye?

  • And starring the tablet PC... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nailer ( 69468 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:08PM (#7497331)
    As Switch. One of the Nebuchadnezzar crew that got killed really early on the first movie and was promptly forgotten about forever.

  • Comdex? (Score:5, Funny)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) * on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:09PM (#7497345) Journal
    Isn't that dying faster than *BSD?
  • The Matrix spoof, and not about the business plan.

  • Gates and Ballmer? Which one was Neo? (Score:5, Funny)

    by u-235-sentinel ( 594077 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:10PM (#7497357) Homepage Journal
    I haven't seen it (yet) but doesn't Neo die in the movie :D

    Which is Neo again? :D
  • I can sit back and take it easy. Bill's on the job. I'm going to go take a nap.

    Wake me when the web is working.

  • What's wrong with this picture. (Score:5, Funny)

    by FrostedWheat ( 172733 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:10PM (#7497366)
    Neo: What is the Matrix?
    Morpheus: Unfortunately no one can be told what the Matrix is.
    Neo: Why?
    Morpheus: My tablet PC just crashed.

  • Matrix spoof (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cyber_rigger ( 527103 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:12PM (#7497388) Homepage Journal
    Borland did this years ago [drbob42.com]


    Borland Matrix spoof

    So much for Microsoft inovation.

  • I can't wait... (Score:5, Funny)

    by greenskyx ( 609089 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:12PM (#7497390)
    For the part where Agent Linux burns Bills eyes out and then he finally can see all the Linux everywhere...

  • Interesting choice of characters (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nodwick ( 716348 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:15PM (#7497417)
    It's interesting that they've positioned Linux as the Matrix (the establishment), and Microsoft as Neo/Morpheus (the underdogs/rebels). I'd have thought the reverse would be a more accurate analogy ...

    • Re:Interesting choice of characters (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gripdamage ( 529664 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @08:56PM (#7498304)
      It's even more interesting that they show a supposed Linux laptop displaying a Windows style error message with non-sensical text. So

      1) to make linux look bad they need to make it look like Windows.

      2) they can't even come up with a common error message in Linux that people actually see (because those kind of of errors get fixed in Linux). Unlike say:

      "The driver for the display device got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly. Please check with your display device vendor for any driver updates. "

      The last two Windows XP laptops I've used got this BSOD error with different video cards and up to date drivers, although usually they just froze up and quit working entirely. Under Linux, this problem "with the device" or "driver" disappeared.

      "LINUX Kernel Error! Recompile Driver!" My ass!

  • Mirror - pictures only (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:16PM (#7497426)
    pictures only [shutterfly.com]

  • Mirror (may not be up for long) (Score:4, Informative)

    by mskfisher ( 22425 ) * on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:22PM (#7497481) Homepage Journal
    This is a bad idea, but here's a mirror:
    I reserve the right to replace these with smaller versions if it gets hammered too hard...

  • Special Guest Star... (Score:5, Funny)

    by D-Cypell ( 446534 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:26PM (#7497530)
    Larry Elison as the Oracle!

  • 10 bucks says (Score:5, Funny)

    by SirSlud ( 67381 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:28PM (#7497556) Homepage
    Next week, there'll be an article on how the company MS contracted to put this movie together did it with Apple iMovie or somesuch.

  • leather trenchcoat (Score:5, Funny)

    by pyros ( 61399 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:30PM (#7497569) Journal
    All this time I thought it was that leather trenchcoat making Laurence Fishburne look so cool. I need a mental shower now to clean the image of Bill Gates in a long leather coat.

  • Little red pill, BIG BLUE PILL (Score:4, Funny)

    by crashnbur ( 127738 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:34PM (#7497603)
    So I guess Billy Boy is trying to tell us that Linux is harder to swallow. In either case, it's pretty obvious that Windows has emerged victorious on a technicality.

    Other than that, I know some guys that would rather choke on a blue pill that size than go Windows.

  • So according to the analogy... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by crashnbur ( 127738 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:43PM (#7497682)
    If Linux is the Matrix, and Windows is the rebel humans fighting back... would Slashdot be the Merovingian, the supreme trafficker of information hoping to know all that it can and in the mean time falling short of disguising its favoring Linux?

  • And featuring Steve Jobs... (Score:5, Funny)

    by crashnbur ( 127738 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:45PM (#7497706)
    ...as Agent Smith!

  • It only goes to show (Score:5, Insightful)

    by smartin ( 942 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:49PM (#7497733)
    Of all the things that money can buy, a personality isn't one of them.

  • The Gates-trix (Score:3, Informative)

    by GregThePaladin ( 696772 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:51PM (#7497745) Homepage Journal
    Am I the only one who remembers The Gates-trix [ifilm.com]?

    God, that was a funny film.

  • Linux vs Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 17, 2003 @07:57PM (#7497786)
    "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win."
    -Gandhi

    So what stage are we at now?
    • they get you to laugh at them. Remember the nazi's are now just a movie bad guy. Soviet russia is a slashdot joke and as for Gandhis enemy the british empire. Well. Just watch the news.

      Note that so far noone seems to have made any serious comment on the presentation. Just a lot of jokes. What MS says is just not taken serious here. Does that matter? Nope.

  • Linux Kernel Error (Score:3, Funny)

    by sharph ( 171971 ) <sharp@sauropod.org> on Monday November 17, 2003 @08:07PM (#7497852) Homepage
    Oh, yeah. I hate those LINUX Kernel Errors that pop up all the time... Who wrote that into Gnome anyway?

  • Weakness (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LittleLebowskiUrbanA ( 619114 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @08:21PM (#7497980) Homepage Journal
    This is a sign of weakness that they do this. I wonder how much money and time they wasted on this but apparently after seeing that fictional Linux kernel error, probably not much.

  • "We need bugs... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ctrl-alt-elite ( 679492 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @08:59PM (#7498320)
    ...lots of bugs."

  • Horse suppository... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Lodragandraoidh ( 639696 ) on Monday November 17, 2003 @09:37PM (#7498558) Journal
    From the Dissociated Press:

    (DP)After regaining my composure, I realized their take on the Matrix was all wrong. The horse suppository sized pill was mis-marked, should have been the Windows pill. It should have gone in the other end, after Balmer, timidly pointing to the small Linux pill, finally submits - smiling and whistling a show tune.
    - Vin Dozier, Las Vegas

    This was just feeding dog food to the dogs - nothing more, nothing less.

  • It's funny, laugh ! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DarkDust ( 239124 ) <marc@darkdust.net> on Tuesday November 18, 2003 @05:38AM (#7500711) Homepage

    Most people here seem to hate that spoof, and it seems just because it's MicroSoft making fun out of Linux.

    I really hate MicroSoft, and I really love Linux. But I have to admit that this spoof has style. I mean, it's normal for MicroSoft to bash Linux, but this time they're doing it with style, and I find it very funny.

    It's not good to take everything serious, and while I really hate MS, billg and Monkeyboy this spoof really is funny, IMHO. It's childish to say it's bad just because it's MS bashing Linux. If it were Linus and Alan Cox doing that very same video, bashing MicroSoft, everyone would praise it as the best piece of humor in IT ever...

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