Sampins, Jim

A-List 2006

Job title: Director of SME technology business.

Company: Oracle UK.

Year of birth: 1964.

Place of birth: Northampton.

Career outline: I have 18 years IT experience, including sales and general management background in direct and channel sales for IBM, Data General, ATI and Hyperion Solutions.

What motivates you every morning to get up and work in the channel? The variety, the energy and the innovation.

What has been the most over-hyped technology in the past five years? Probably Microsoft XP.

What will be the most underrated technology in the next five years? Grid computing: the ability to get any application, at any time, anywhere.

Which technology would you most like to have invented? The relational database.

Do you have any regrets from your time in the industry? That I didn’t join earlier. IT has been and continues to be the most exciting place to be in UK industry.

If you could swap places with anyone in the industry, who would it be? Probably Dr Alan Turing, then I would have been the true father of IT.

What is the biggest hurdle you have faced in your career? The dot com crash. Like many others I was hooked on the hype and thought I could retire at 40.

What is the biggest success of your career? When I was at IBM, growing Powergen to be IBM’s largest RS/6000 AIX VAR in the UK in the 1990s, and building Oracle’s SME business to be one of our most successful line s of business in the UK.

What piece of technology could you not live without? Laptop and mobile phone.

What would be your advice to anyone starting a career in IT? Listen and learn, take the knocks and remain positive.

What is your favorite computer game? I’d have to ask my 10-year-old son, Louis.

What would you like for Christmas if you could have anything? A ride on Valentino Rossi’s world championship winning motorcycle.

What is your favorite karaoke song? All Right Now, by Free.

What would be the title of your autobiography? I Am Who I Am.

Do you have any phobias? Yes. Losing.

How many beers before you fall over? 3

Number of staff you manage? 55.

What car do you drive? MG.

Number of air miles you have? Umpteen.