The Insurance Tech Guru

Terms of the anticipated purchase were not disclosed.

"The purchase of this industry-wide standards body is just the latest step in our strategy to evangelize the computing world," said Bill Hartnett, Microsoft's Insurance Industry Evangelist. "When we see a new standard emerging, we want it to fall under the .NET unmbrella ASAP. To have a whole industry under our already considerable sway is, well, thrilling, even if we are talking about insurance."

ACORD CEO Greg Maciag, contacted at his home, seemed shocked. "I got a call from my Board of Directors this morning saying that all of our standards development problems had been solved. I thought that was great, until I realized that if that's true, there's really nothing left for us to do. I must say, however, that Bill Hartnett is a sterling individual and a true icon of our industry."

Indeed, Mr. Hartnett said that as of today, all further standards development at ACORD will cease until each development program can be brought into line with the .NET platform. Meanwhile, ACORD will continue to operate as an official Microsoft partner. No layoffs are planned, but Mr. Hartnett made clear that "IBM sycophants" would not be tolerated in the new ACORD enterprise.

In addition, all computing at ACORD's offices will be done under the Windows Vista OS for the next 45 months, when support for Vista is set to expire. At that point, ACORD will be quitely absorbed into the monolith Microsoft Collective, Mr. Hartnett explained.

"Resistence," said Mr. Hartnett, "is futile."

Meanwhile, the upcoming ACORD LOMA Systems Forum has been renamed "Microsoft's ACORD LOMA Windows Systems Forum," although the role of LOMA in the revamped conference has yet to be determined. "This isn't about us," said LOMA Vice President Ann Purr. "We don't do standards, and we want no part of a hostile takeover, although I will say that Bill Hartnett is a great guy and I have always admired the genius he brings to the insurance industry."

Respected industry analyst Matt Josefowicz of Novarica was equally taken aback. "This must be a joke," he asserted. And he was correct...

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