ShadowRAM: June 7, 2004

According to Newsday, Computer Associates founder Charles Wang carries a big stick in Oyster Bay, N. Y., Teddy Roosevelt's hometown. Wang is at odds with local community groups who want to honor Roosevelt with a statue in the Long Island hamlet. Apparently, Wang rebuffed a request to place an equestrian statue of Roosevelt on a triangle of land he owns in the downtown area.

According to Newsday, the plan was discussed at several meetings and in phone calls with Wang's property management company, Island Properties. But the May 17 meeting was the first time the committee got to talk to Wang directly.

"He called it extortion and didn't like other people discussing what he should do with his property and his money," said John Gable, executive director of the Theodore Roosevelt Association and committee member. "He said the property was for sale and was therefore unavailable to us. I can understand where he's coming from, but of course, it's a great disappointment."

The latest Microsoft corporate permutations have all tongues wagging. The fact that Orlando Ayala now reports to Doug Burgum, who now reports directly to Steve Ballmer, means nothing less than a big demotion for Ayala, the former sales chief at Microsoft, they say. Both Burgum and Ayala had reported into Jeff Raikes, group veep for Microsoft Business Productivity group.

The fact that MBS is now one step closer to Ballmer indicates how important the business apps push is to Microsoft, the wags say.

Don't cry for Orlando, though. He still has tons o' direct reports, including Tami Reller, Ms. MBS Marketing; Bill Landefeld, who heads MBS operations; and Dave O'Hara, who heads biz dev and field sales. Plus, he has Allison Watson, Steve Guggenheimer, John Lauer and Doug Leland reporting in.

Computex, which bills itself as the second-largest IT trade show in the world after Germany's CeBit, continues to live up to its reputation as one of the liveliest exhibitions anywhere.

Groups of uniformed part-timers were parading from booth-to-booth trying to get visitors to notice their wares. Did I say uniformed? Most of these groups were made up of beautiful young women wearing very short dresses or shorts made of plastic or patent leather, along with the tall boots many Japanese women prefer.