in which case you'll be *delighted* to know that it's made the Register too at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/19/microsoft_blog_hoax_backfire/

luck
M

When it comes to blogs, Andrew Orlowski at the Register has already prejudged the medium.

If we can't blow off a little steam by writing things on our own websites, the world has gone insane. There's a tension for the blogs.msdn.com people between writing about things they find amusing and writing up technical material (the extremes probably being Matt Warren and Chris Brumme, respectively). But then blogs are supposed to be a humanising process and, yes, software engineers are human too.

spreading a lie is OK ?
no wmd here :D

I didn't lie. That was just a fairly accurate, just incomplete transcript of the table discussion and I happened to cite myself out of context.

...and why are you backpedaling now?
the "administration" is putting pressure on you?
;)
Srdjan

I am not taking anything back.

Imho your original post doesn't sound too much like a joke. Agreed you didn't provide details or specify that it is planned or developped in any way, but it's kind of implied... Maybe I just couldn't find my brain's "active mode" today ;-)
Now, I agree it's another matter for a journalist to make a story on such little info :-)

Also, you may not be taking anything back, but apparently many blogger who linked to that post did. Many referral links are now 404s.

I took it very seriously, and I'm not deleting my original post. I stand behind my words because I think there's value in the idea.

I do, however, think that journalists need to be careful before they go formulating opinions and causing a stir over the most gushing of the bleeding-edge technology.

I saw another article today that made me cringe because the author really had no clue about what he was talking about. In addition, the resulting backlash of his readers is unfounded. It's scary to see just how many people are making things up when they don't understand the reality just to write 1000 words and get their paycheck.

There's the rub, see, if you know what you're talking about in our industry, then you're better paid (besides a few of the top journalists who actually _do_ have a clue) and you are most likely _not_ a journalist, you're a professional programmer or architect.

Well, I'm not a journalist, I'm a consultant, so I see the intrinsic value in the idea of a business agent. However, I also understand that such an idea needs years of work before it can be useful to the average user.

I'm not backing off my comments. I think it's awesome to bring back the business agent again. Maybe this time we can get more traction with the idea since it doesn't rely on being a guru C++ developer to understand and implement it.

http://www.cerkit.com/cerkitBlog/PermaLink,guid,7f77b111-180a-4afa-ad1e-86bf85cd9a26.aspx

Go Clemens!