The New York Times (reg. req.) has a confusing report on the competing visions for the future of computing from Microsoft and IBM (Two Companies at Odds Over the Internet's Future). Not surprisingly, Microsoft denigrates IBM's vision:

"I.B.M. is talking about taking all the things we do now and outsourcing it," Mr. Gates said last week in an interview. "The utility model suggests that it is not about empowerment."

And Microsoft is about empowerment? Mr. Gates must be using a different dictionary then I do. Well, actually, Mr. Gates can afford to have the dictionary changed or at least he acts as if he can. Speaking of outsourcing ... what exactly do you call it when you buy your software on a subscription basis (the model Microsoft is trying to move the market towards)? If I don't actually own my software, but only have access so long as I pay the Microsoft tax subscription fee, isn't that outsourcing my software solution?

Microsoft executives compare the first stage of the Internet to the mainframe era, with the Web server computer the equivalent of the mainframe and the browser as the equivalent of the simple, "dumb" terminal of the mainframe days. The personal computer, they say, brought an explosion of creativity and opportunity as millions of people began using computers and programming themselves. Some were professionals, they note, but many others were ordinary people using the simple programming tools in a spreadsheet, for example, to simulate and test new ideas for a business.

Microsoft praising the "explosion of creativity and opportunity as millions of people began using computers and programming themselves?" Has the world gone mad? Did I somehow slip into the same parallel dimension where Spock has a goatee? Is Microsoft actually encouraging PC empowerment at the expense of centralized, chokepointed systems such as a privately owned monopolized operating system?

The next stage of computing, employing the Web services software standards, will do the same thing for the Internet, Microsoft executives say. "The Internet will be programmable," Microsoft's chief technical officer, Craig Mundie, said. "And there's no reason why the bulk of humanity won't be able to apply the tools we're talking about to this new world."

Ummm, isn't Microsoft's vision that the only tools you can use will be Microsoft's tools? Well, perhaps not the only tools, just the preferred tools:

But, of course, the Microsoft message is that the preferred technology for building and experiencing the next generation of the Internet is Windows.

Ah, turns out I am still in the right dimension.