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Last week we talked about billionaire financier Sam Wyly's attempted takeover of Computer Associates (See "They've All Sold Out"). In the last few days, the ever aggressive CA fired back. Of course, CA's response included the now-mandatory quotes from well-paid industry analysts.

As you may recall, Wyly introduced his intentions in a letter to CA stockholders, charging that CA customers were profoundly unhappy, a notion backed by some research and, to be fair, an array of first-hand accounts that have been published over the years. CA dismissed Wyly's customer satisfaction research, claiming that only 25 percent of its customers are teed off, and not the 51 percent that Wyly claimed were dissatisfied. Hey, if 25 percent of my anything were upset, I'd be alarmed. In any case, CA believes Wyly is just "having fun" in trying to take over the company.

Wyly may be the right guy, but, as CA execs appropriately suggest, his plan to break CA into four pieces is overly vague. To me, this all seems like a scene from the movie "Wall Street" -- top financial hot shots angling for control without any understanding of how the fundamental business works. How 'bout some details, Sam?

Father Notifies Best

Most enterprise customers rely on the top anti-virus vendors. I just wait for e-mail from my dad. A few of his messages over the years have turned out to be hoaxes, but the latest item came directly from McAfee so it has to be real. And now fifty of my closest relatives and friends know to watch out for the W32/SirCam@MM e-mail virus. You, too, can consider yourself warned. Like dozens and dozens of other viruses, this one looks up your e-mail addresses and forwards itself to those nearest and dearest to you, like your boss, your wife, and your dad.

China Curbs Cyber Traffic

If you head to China, don't think you can just pop into the nearest cyber café and start downloading Pam Anderson JPGs. Recently, the same government that ran over its people with tanks crushed a couple thousand cyber cafés that failed to comply with restrictive government regulations on information dissemination -- the ones that let you read the speeches of approved Communist politicians and peruse Olympic swimming results, but do little else.

Handspring Does a Back Flip

Handspring, founded by the same fine folks that brought us the PalmPilot, makes some darn nice handhelds, but these devices are apparently not good enough to help the company post a profit. Handspring's revenues didn't just fall, they darn near collapsed, down some 50 percent from the previous quarter, resulting in a loss of over $30 million. For most people, handhelds are discretionary items. Maybe George W. could suggest we all buy Handsprings with our tax refunds.

Strong-Arm Tactics Denied

AT&T's C. Michael Armstrong spent more than $100 million assembling a massive dysfunctional consumer-gouging cable operation. Now Comcast wants to pick this specimen up for a paltry $58 billion. AT&T rightly rejected this insulting offer and is looking to spin off the unit. A sale or a spin-off defeats Armstrong's entire strategy, which was to blend cable TV, broadband Internet access, and telephony into one service. AT&T should stick to its guns.

Dino Deal

This last item, so far, has absolutely nothing to do with computers, the Internet or networking. U.S. newspapers have begun accepting ads for "Jurassic Park 3," which show shadowy dinosaur figures flying over editorial text. I can tell you this, I wouldn't be too happy if a Cisco router was superimposed over my columns or Network Computing's fine editorial content. Hopefully this little intrusion can confine itself to our nations' daily newspapers.