If anyone thinks that Eckhard Pfeiffer, CEO of Compaq, does not have aims at world domination, let these few words in a Q&A at the gruesome Landmark Hotel on Tuesday this week sink in. "Who is the next Microsoft? That's what matters." You have to search for the Nero inside yourself. Pfeiffer has several strings to his world domination bow and one of them is definitely the Alpha microprocessor. According to pre-eminent Compaq watcher Terry Shannon (see Shannon knows Compaq), his information is that a dual-chip Goldrush will beat a quad Sun 450 system hands down. This is the idea: keep the price of Alpha dropping until a system using the ex-DEC chip costs about the same as a comparable PC. Then go to Sun's customers and ask them why they're allowing Sun to reap 50 per cent profit margins, while demonstrating that Compaq's own -- equivalent or better systems -- only have profit margins of single digits. IBM and HP also get slightly bruised, but not as much as Sun. Of course, Samsung is on a spree to cut the prices of its Alpha chips by a huge amount, as previously reported here. Cunning, eh? ® RegOid Alphalpha Son of Daedalus, Eckhard Pfeiffer flew with his father Bill Gates from Crete but the sun melted his wax wings and he fell to earth. This story has no connection with David Bowie whatever.