Show me the money
Dave is amazed to hear that staff often take jobs with better money, floors may become sentient and 'product' has become a dirty word
Smart move
Have you noticed how everything is claiming to be smart these days? Smart, this, smart that, smart the other. Well now IBM has been granted a patent for a "smart floor"… yep, you read that right: a smart floor. It's apparently going to be able to detect if someone in a room has fallen or if an intruder has entered the premises. According to the PR puff, the floor senses the shapes, weight and number of feet on the ground so it can distinguish between adults, children, infants and pets, as well as identifying unauthorised visitors. If this works, it will be great for old people who live alone - or someone who has no friends and is extremely security conscious - but not so good if you happen to live in a busy house with people coming and going all the time. Your nerves would be shot every time the kids brought a friend or two home for tea. Maybe it still needs a little work, guys?
The P word
I was intrigued this week to learn that Computacenter has apparently banned the dirty word that is "product" from all its communications to press and investors. According to a trading update last week, the company now divides its business into two segments: services, and something it's calling "supply chain". What happened to the product business that generated the lion's share of Computacenter's revenue last year, making it the UK's largest reseller? OK, we get that you don't want people to see you as a tin shifter, but instead, more of a global provider of cloud-based, customer-facing turnkey service solutions. But, guys, is it really such a hard word to say? Repeat after me: P-R-O-D-U-C-T!
Money talks, talent walks
Fat salaries and exciting start-ups are attracting the talent away from mid-sized firms, a roundtable event from UKFast has concluded. Well, aside from bears defecating in the woods and a certain pope being a devotee of a certain religion, this has to be one of the most stunning revelations I've come across in a long while. No, really. I mean, who would have thought that when faced with an enormous salary, someone with a modicum of talent and sense would snap it up? When I look around the Dodgi offices, I almost wish there were an exciting start-up in the area so I could force some of the useless articles here to apply for a job. Then I could get some graduates in - I've heard they come quite cheap. And to be honest, the only wallet that I like to be fat around here is mine.
Peed off
IT workers are always regarded as a little stranger than the average worker, and one geezer in the US helped strengthen that perception when he was caught marking his territory in the same way as an adult tomcat. The 59-year-old Des Moines-based amorous geek was caught on camera urinating on the chairs of female colleagues whom he deemed attractive, marking his patch in a primitive way to warn off any other randy alpha males. He eventually turned himself in to the police after he realised his antics were preserved on film. Obviously he was discharged from his job and the local cleaning company must have got some interesting business as a result. I hope his punishment isn't the same as the one most of the unneutered tomcats around here get. Ouch.
Sup up and shut up shop
The majority of my peers enjoy the odd can of shandy but one former reseller boss I know is taking it a step further by setting up his own brewery. I hear that Darron Anley, who helmed Security Partnerships before selling it to Bytes last year, will have a plant up and running for the manufacture of fine malt liquors by September. When I retire from the channel, I'll be spending my time shopping for shoes, not making booze, if Her Indoors gets her way.