Channel Talk (22nd June)
Could it be that the staff down at Datech 2000 ? you remember it, Frontline?s sister company ? are slightly paranoid? On its Web site two weeks ago, the distributor said it would not print its address. It stated: ?In the Datech office we have lots of nice expensive equipment and whilst we have 24-hour security, I believe that it would be unwise to advertise our address to the more unscrupulous internet users as a source of new equipment. Let me know what you think ? am I being too paranoid??
Next week, however, Datech printed its Leatherhead address. So does that mean that it was being too paranoid or does it prove that it got it burgled and there is nothing left in its offices?
PC Squealer was invited to a digital imaging conference last week by that nice man at Ingram Micro, Nigel Judd, marketing director at the distributor. He said there were a number of locations where we could choose to attend the conferences, with presentations at Old Trafford, Aston Villa and Chelsea?s football ground. Obviously the Chelsea one being nearer to our offices, it would be best for us to go to that one. But will Judd be there? No. Apparently he is abroad that week. Or is just a good excuse not to be there because he is an ardent Tottenham supporter who wouldn?t be seen dead there?
Bay Networks was not the reseller?s best friend a few weeks ago when an over-enthusiastic PR mailshot ended up clogging up the email systems of its partners. Anguished executives opened mailboxes to find that they had received all the reply emails from all the people they had targeted. The chairman of one software reseller said it took him 15 minutes to open his mailbox. PC Squealer might gently suggest that this was not the best way to advertise the services of a networking and communications specialist.
Direct manufacturer Gateway 2000 recently opened for business on the New York stock exchange. The company, which uses a cow for all of its marketing, had originally intended to use MOO as the ticker symbol. However CEO Ted Waitt apparently lost his proverbial sense of humour at the last moment and the symbol is now GTW.
It has always been said that the national newspapers are not that clued up when it comes to technology stories. But did the Guardian get it right or wrong last week when it stated that the UK?s meteorological site in Bracknell used the Krays? supercomputers, instead of Crays?
High-tech studio organisation Dream Works has been slapped with a lawsuit to halt the plans for a giant studio complex in Los Angeles. The conservationist group Sierra Club has become the lead plantiff in a lawsuit against the $8 billion Playa Vista site. It will house studios, hotels, a marina, 13,000 condominiums, shops and offices. Dream Works has promised to restore the wetlands, Sierra Club is not convinced.