I “created” this graphic back in 2005 using other resources and Photoshop. At that time there was a mashup of Bill Gates smiling face and the Locutus of Borg costume. That graphic seems to have appeared around the 1997/1998 time frame when the DoJ started suing Microsoft for monopoly practices. Keep in mind that the ST:TNG two-part episode “The Best of Both Worlds,” where Locutus appeared the first time, aired in 1990. Anyway…

The underlying Borg cube itself was created by a very talented graphic artist who was either a student or working (or both) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (computer graphics, computer art?). He’d been creating a series of Star Trek models, and then setting them up in a series of beautiful visualizations which he’d posted on the Web. That Borg cube is one of his works. Unfortunately, having grabbed this back around 2005, I no longer have any idea who he is or where he’s currently at. I would very much like to know, if for no other reason than to provide proper attribution.

I found the Microsoft logo on the Microsoft site as one of their official logos in SVG format. It was available for download, so I downloaded that. Using Photoshop and layers, I put the Borg cube in the lowest layer, then put the logo on the next layer. I then adjusted the logo in size and location, adding transparency to the logo, so that it appeared to blend into the side. Export to JPEG, and post. Somewhere in all my stuff I think I still have that Photoshop file, but I can’t find it. It has, after all, been a good 10 years, and once I created this conglomeration I quickly moved on to other things.

I also created this at a time when I was filled with considerably more righteous indignation against all concerned parties. It has tapered off considerable over the last decade. Microsoft has long since ceased being the fearsome monolithic force the Gnu-ists would like to continue to think it is. As history now notes, two years later Apple introduced the first iPhone on 29 June 2007, during which we were entertained by Steve Ballmer’s clueless dismissal of the iPhone. Fast forward to today and Microsoft is little more than an historical footnote in mobile and is boxed into the dwindling PC market, everybody has Android or iOS smartphones, and people are now writing about how Microsoft “is the company to watch in 2016.” How far the once mighty have fallen.

Which is to say that the graphic is irrelevant. It no longer has the visceral punch it might have once had due to both Microsoft’s and the Star Trek franchise’s slide into historical irrelevancy. While Microsoft might have a chance of coming back, I don’t ever see that happening with Star Trek. But that’s another story…