CHANNEL TALK
Continuing on the theme of true love, because we at PC Squealer are old romantics at heart, Compaq and its trusty distributor Metrologie recently hit upon the novel idea of inspiring a bit of lust in the office.
Nobody could accuse Sony of not being quick on the uptake. In response to the furore over its recent advert for CoolBoarders 2, which sounded like a bad case of someone powdering their nose - if you know what we mean - Sony gave this response: 'We now understand that some people perceive that it contains references to drugs.' PC Squealer can't think what on earth could have led to that conclusion. But here's a snippet to let you decide: 'Powder, my body yells, aches for powder. I need the rush, the buzz. I have to get higher than the last time.' Need we say more?
No way are Microsoft managers paranoid. Even if a brief outburst during a lunch with certain MS soldiers led PC Squealer to think otherwise. As the wine flowed during an otherwise reasonably pleasant eat-in, the conversation began to stall as we all turned to our menus to choose a suitable dish.
Suddenly, without warning, a certain Microsoft channel type spun around and pointed an accusatory finger at the poor waiter who was hovering expectantly near our table. 'Are you making a pass at me or do you want to take my order?' he demanded. Thankfully, the waiter was French and simply scratched his head and took this as a request to refill our glasses. While this jumpy channel type might not be over the moon about imaginary advances from Gallic waiters, PC Squealer has one thing to say - don't flatter yourself.
Ever heard of an Applemaster? No, it's not someone who grows a nice Granny Smith, it's actually a bunch of famous people including dancers, artists, athletes and scientists who think the Mac is the best thing since sliced bread. Take, for example, rock god and man of dubious skin condition Bryan Adams, who said: 'The Mac is the most exciting thing any student could ever dream of working on. I only wish we had them when I was a student ...
Perhaps I would not have left school so early to become a musician!' We can all dream Bryan.
Those exhibitionists at Allied Telesyn just can't stop themselves from trying to steal the limelight. On a recent press trip to Istanbul, one of the little networkers nearly fell over himself in his haste to jump on stage and join the locals for a spot of belly-dancing. However, our Turkish maiden didn't seem too impressed by his efforts. PC Squealer thinks maybe there was just too much belly in his dancing.
Congratulations to IBM, which really pushed the boat out at its recent BPEC'98 conference in San Francisco. Festivities kicked off at the inhuman hour of 8.30am when a rather jet-lagged PC Squealer would have been forgiven for thinking he had stumbled in on a Monsters Of Rock concert rather than a business partner love-in. The audience was (mis)treated to loud rock music, absailers swinging down from above the stage curtains, plus a comedy RiverDance-esque troupe. What this had to do with ensuring the loyalty of the channel remains a mystery to this day. IBM continued its assault - sorry, marketing spectacular - by harping on about its big love affair with 'e-business'. It even made up delightful ditties peppered with the chant 'the future of e-business ...' with every other line, phrase or response to questions starting with e. However, e was definitely not in the blood of its partners.
Of the 5,000-odd that signed up for the gig, only 20 per cent did so over the Internet. You talk the talk.
Continuing on the theme of true love, because we at PC Squealer are old romantics at heart, Compaq and its trusty distributor Metrologie recently hit upon the novel idea of inspiring a bit of lust in the office.
The ingenious plan these little Cupids dreamed up was to offer to send someone's secret love a free red rose with every Compaq order.
And if that wasn't incentive enough, those wiley old tricksters even penned an ode to inspire people to rush out and buy its latest hardware plug-in electronic thingy.
The rhyme goes a little like this: 'Roses are red, violets are blue, an order from Compaq means a red rose for you'. Hold on to your tights, Willy Shakespeare.