ShadowRAM

ot to add to any year 2000 panic, but next December, think of three things: beer, bottled water and the Sears catalog. Some CompTIA folks recently visited water treatment plants in Nebraska to test controllers for Y2K problems at municipal water treatment facilities. Within hours, coliform bacteria showed up in the water systems, meaning some embedded processors aren't quite ready for the new millennium. What's more, there are over 1,000 similar water treatment systems around the country.

It seems the Chinese have an entirely different way of handling the Y2K phenomenon. The Chinese Ministry of Information Industries ordered all top executives of its national airline to fly on Jan. 1, 2000. I'm not sure if this is a vote of confidence in China's Y2K compliance or the harbinger of a management coup.

A new name popped up in the on-again, off-again CHS/Pinacor merger discussions. Sources say Arrow Electronics, with its Gates/Arrow unit, may be involved. Arrow could either be a third party, providing financing to CHS in a Pinacor deal, or provide the U.S. distribution outlet CHS is looking for, which could leave Pinacor the odd man out. Arrow isn't commenting. CHS' Claudio Osorio may have been right when he called his bid to buy a U.S. distributor a poker game. My guess? He may be trying to extract a better deal from Jeff McKeever and Co.

Meanwhile, talk of CHS possibly acquiring Pinacor inspired one channel exec to call from the beach in Florida. He said he was scouring CRN Online for more details on the deal, but when Pinacor president Jim Manton met with CRN last week, mum was the word.

It looks as if IBM is set to expand its roster of master Authorized Assembler Program partners to include Time Trend of Alexandria, La. The regional IBM reseller appears to be shifting its model to become an IBM-only distributor and gaining status at the top rung of IBM's AAP seems a necessary ingredient.

Microsoft's Bahram Mohazzebi, general manager of GEM (Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean), said the company plans to open offices in Pakistan. I didn't know the Pakistani market was that big,maybe Microsoft is really serious about world domination?

Word has it the Office 2000 release date has slipped to April 15 from April 1. Microsoft had only said it would come out in "Q1."

Is the news of the imminent death of software-only resellers greatly exaggerated? Rumor has it that Corporate Software & Technology, for example, had a very perky first quarter.

Someone sent me an electronic greeting card from Blue Mountain Arts, and this was on the tail of the E-mail link: "IMPORTANT NOTICE: Blue Mountain Arts believes that it has evidence that a number of personalized Blue Mountain electronic greeting cards have been diverted to junk mail trash by Microsoft Corp. Blue Mountain has voiced strong objections to Microsoft over this conduct to no avail. In addition, we believe that some Blue Mountain cards have been blocked by Microsoft's WebTV Networks. . . . On Dec. 8, 1998, Blue Mountain filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and its subsidiary, WebTV."

Take a number, boys. If I'm not mistaken, someone beat you to the punch on this lawsuit business.

But there's no waiting in line for tipsters. Drop me a dime at shadowram@cmp.com, call (800) 521-DIME or fax (781) 487-7588.