America Online’s CEO Steve Case clearly has too much time on his hands. He’s come up with the idea of replacing the generic unctuous male voice that gives those irksome log-on greetings of “Welcome” and “You’ve Got Mail” with your choice of the voices of David Letterman, Rosie O’Donnell, Dennis Rodman and others.
That greeting is sounded 17 million times a day by the canned voice as AOL subscribers log on to count the spam in their mailboxes and otherwise waste time on the Internet. Hit Control + K (keyword) and type in Celebrity Contest to order your own Worm welcome.
JAVA WARS
SUN OF SPAM
Scot McNealy, CEO at Sun Microsystems Inc. and Bill Gates-hater par excellence, urges audiences to fire off chiding e-mail to the Merlin of Microsoft supporting Sun’s lawsuit charging Microsoft with trying to torpedo Sun’s Java programming language.
Those who shoot off McNealy-inspired Sun spam to billg@microsoft.com should click the cc: button and send a copy to scott.mcnealy@corp.sun.com as well. After all, what’s spam for the goose is spam for the gander.
MENTAL HEALTH
IT’S NOT ALL SPAM
Spyglass Inc., the Naperville-based Internet whiz-bang company now wiring everything from gasoline pumps to cell phones onto the World Wide Web, has disappointed waves of investors who have ridden its stock (Nasdaq: SPYG) from a high just under $60 per share in June 1995 to Friday’s close of an anemic $7.94.
But last week Spyglass CEO Douglas Colbeth and his wife, Margaret Colbeth, donated $2 million to endow research in mental health at the University of Illinois, underscoring that the company, born of mid-1990s Internet frenzy, remains a well-endowed enterprise. Meanwhile, maybe Colbeth’s gift will comfort speculators who now wonder if they shouldn’t see a shrink themselves after shelling out $60 per share.
WINDOWS WEALTH
INSTALL THIS!
Almost as well-known to computer users as that oily AOL “You’ve got mail” voice is the InstallShield software that pops up in Windows 95 whenever you add or remove store-bought software from your PC.
Less well known is that the privately held company behind this enormously lucrative product is based in Schaumburg, where it has ridden the tidal wave of Windows 95, posting an average 5-year growth rate of 1,599 percent. Viresh Bhatia, founder of Install Shield, now has won a listing by INC. magazine as one of America’s 500 fastest growing companies, joining a pantheon of the PC, pizza and parka plush including Microsoft, Domino’s and Patagonia. Also INC.ed for greatness, Imagecom, a hot new Arlington Heights outfit specializing in heavy-duty business computer communications.
