Gorilla Bloat

xactly how massive of a gorilla is Microsoft? Commentators seem confused on the matter, although the weight is often pegged at 800 pounds. There are those who claim that gorilla size doesn't matter, but the issue is indeed important. Understanding the company's current gorilla-mass is crucial to predicting the future of Microsoft. What will the company be like, after all, when it is broken up into numerous baby and teen gorillas?

In contrast to the 800-pound figure, PC World suggested a more modest weight back in November 1998: 500 pounds. Of course, Microsoft has grown a bit since then. In December of 1998 a claim from Steve Wadsworth of Disney came out during the antitrust trial. He asserted that Microsoft was a 1,000-pound gorilla. The Engineering Times further confused the matter in their May 1999 issue, referring to Microsoft as a 1,200-pound gorilla. But that sort of figure had a even more hyperbolic precedent - Computer Design weighed Microsoft in at 2,000 gorilla-pounds back in 1996.

Obesity is a particular American affliction, one which seems to be reflected in Microsoft's growing gorilla-portliness. The average adult male gorilla weighs less than 400 pounds. At most of the suggested weights, Microsoft would be a sedentary, disgust-inspiring gorilla spectacle, not a fearsome, competition-crushing alpha male. No one on the Web - as yet - has made the more physically reasonable yet quite sinister claim that Microsoft is a 666-pound gorilla. Numerological manipulations of the ASCII values in Bill Gates's name hint that this may be the case.

Those who side with the justice department, hoping to righteously take down an enormous gorilla, may actually be picking a heavier gorilla to bet on. The government's regulatory apparatus was characterized as even more massive than that of Microsoft, gorilla-wise, in a Nevada Policy Research Institute article entitled "Reforming the 4,000 Pound Gorilla." Even if we take this estimate seriously, Microsoft may tip the scales of justice. In an August 1997 article that appeared in the HAL-PC User Group's magazine, Microsoft was dubbed a "five-thousand pound gorilla."