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To: Alan Deutschman, Fortune
In my "Visions of Platform Vendors" piece, released on Sunday December 4, I said:
Now let's swing forward to a few months ago, to a cover story in Fortune, written by Alan Deutschman, a subscriber, and a friend. It painted a very rosy picture of Mr. Gerstner as the electrifying and creative leader of IBM. How electrifying? When he was on a tour of some random IBM facility and asked a worker what he was working on, the answer was "platforms." Gerstner's response was something like "well, whatever a platform is, be sure you do a good job!"
First, I didn't mean to reflect on Alan's abilities as a journalist. It may have sounded as if I did. [Sometimes, I think, journalists play along with a celebrity's "party line," with their tongues in their cheek. I assumed this was one of those times.]
But much more important: I got my facts wrong! Alan did *not* write that piece. My memory, as I approach age 40, ain't what it used to be. I've got to stop depending on it so much!
Alan: I'm very sorry this happened, and I hope we're still friends after this very embarassing mistake.
Sincerely,
Dave Winer
PS: According to Alan: "Next week Fortune is scheduled to debut on
Compuserve, although I don't know whether the service will provide access to back issues." Great news!
PPS: I've been cruising America On-Line recently. Two interesting spots: The New York Times is on AOL at keyword "Times." And, for a great discussion on General Magic, and their developer program, check out the Sony MagicLink board, at keyword "Sony." Particularly interesting are Scotty1024's essays. I'd love to get Scotty on this chatnet as a guest. He's actually taken a MagicLink apart, with some very interesting results. And the guy is very funny and a very creative writer. It's hot stuff, check it out!