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IT WAS a clear and quiet Friday night on the park-like suburban
campus. Josh Floorplan, a Microsoft Product Planner, was checking out
for the night, sometime around midnight. "I hear a whoosh, looked
up, and the entire North side of the campus was in flames, " he
said.
In a bizarre twist of fate, not a single
person was in any of the 5 destroyed buildings. Rare for Seattle, Friday
night was warm and the skies were clear, and no one was working at the
time. The destroyed buildings once contained the Microsoft Library, the
Company Store, and the Executive Briefing Center.
WHO DID IT?
Accusations
began flying almost at once. Steve Blamer,
Microsoft President and CEO, acted quickly to quell rumors and to regain
control. Speaking in understated tones as is his trademark, Blamer read
from a prepared statement. "Now, we don't know who did this, and we
do not know why. We have plenty of enemies and it is foolish to rashly
blame government forces when we all know that nearly anyone can break
into an Air Force base and borrow a fighter bomber for an hour or
two."
Damage was extensive, and demolition crews moved in at once to salvage
what they could from the rubble. Blamer said that the incident would not
delay any product releases.
RESPONSE IS MUTED
Employees were largely unfazed by the campus attack. Kirk
Stoppard, a Marketing Engineer, offered a typical response. "Once
it was clear that this would not affect me personally, I was able to
shrug it off and go about my business." Robert "Fred"
Meyer, an associate of Stoppard, was similarly unconcerned. "I've
not been able to check in my code for weeks, and this changes nothing.
Monday morning I am sure that we will still have suite failures."
Vanna Kickline, keyboard designer, summed it up nicely. "Whoever
did this was more than just an aspiring felon. But back in Texas we
would blow up something bigger than this as a schoolyard prank. This is
just small potatoes."
BIOHAZARD AVERTED
Hazardous
material handling crews were called in to handle the EBC. Ostensibly
known as the Executive Briefing Center, long-time employees took to
calling it the Eurest Breeding Center. Rumors that Eurest (food
supplier to the posh array of restaurants on the campus), was conducting
a genetic experiment were commonplace. "It was so creepy,"
said Walter Nesmith, Reorganization Coordinator. "I took one wrong
turn and there I was. All these vats and tubes. Have you ever seen
Soylent Green?"
INDUSTRY RESPONDS
"I did not do it, " said Oracle President Larry Allison.
"Do I own a fighter bomber? Sure. But guns don't kill people,
massive blood loss and internal damage does."
Scott McNally of Microsoft rival Sun Microsystems, was honored to be
accused. Spitting out the words through bucked teeth, he told our
reporter. "That office was a hairball. 200,000 square feet. At Sun
we could fit twice as many people in half the space, and we also give
away the building plans for free.
Jeff "Kissy Kissy" Baysos of  Amazon
did not expect the bombing to change his company's plans at all.
"We've lost lots of money already, and I am sure that we can lose
even more when we start to sell books about this tragedy. I hope that we
can get at least one or two patents out of this. Hey, what about
one-click bombing?"
Dave Winder, long-time Microsoft critic, fan, and supporter
(yeah, we are confused too) told us "I've been after them for quite
a while to open up their code, to tear down the walls, to let in the
outside world. That it happened like this is quite humorous,
actually."
Officials at Red Hat could not be reached for comment.
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