Channel Talk (26 February)

• Those of you who succumb to Microsoft-bashing ? don?t be shy ? may enjoy taking a gander at Microsnot.com?s Web site, where Microsoft?s advertising has been put through the wringer. Products advertised include Windows NoT Server, Internet Exploder and Microsnot, Backoff. Best of all was the aspirational tagline ?Microsnot, where do you want to go, toady?? People who toady up to Microsoft? Surely not.
• 3Com guru Bob Jones claims he has got more than one love in his life. According to the Welshman, he?s not just into networking, he?s passionate about flying too. But when it came to registering his plane, he had a problem. He couldn?t think of a four-letter word with which to register it. Tricky that. But in the end, it was the trusty world of networking which came to his rescue. The word? ISDN. Of course ? we were thinking the same thing all along.
• Love was in the air last week. On Monday, when PC Delia was doing its press-day ring round, there were rather a lot of absentees. Everyone had been whisked off for romantic Valentine?s weekends. Loads of dosh was being spent keeping loved ones sweet. But Frontline MD Graeme Watts came up trumps. He got a baby ? Jasper. Congratulations all round.
• Bay Networks showed its sharing, caring side two weeks ago when it lost 20 UK-based staff, 10 through redundancies and 10 through performance issues. In a meeting with staff from the Ealing telesales arm, the American chappie who was breaking the bad news was so overcome by the distress of those made redundant, that he ended up blubbing himself. That?s the kind of tough mental attitude you need to survive in today?s brutal networking arena. Having said that, when 3Com?s stock fell through the floor earlier this month, every 3Com employee with a share option scheme probably cried buckets.
• The Electronic Freedom Foundation must have been shed a tear or two last week, as the good citizens of Lyon, France, were treated to their first cyber-McDonald?s. The restaurant has been decorated ?in an internet theme? and has two computers to allow access to the Web for customers with smart cards. How long, Channel Talk wonders, until Microsoft agrees to carry the Ronald McDonald icon on the Office 97 desktop?
• Re-routed by British Airways because his flight to Nice was full, Ed Arnett, Azlan MD for Northern Europe, saw more of the region than he bargained for last week. In spite of having two business class tickets to fly from Heathrow to the South of France for a press conference at IBM, the distribution giant?s chief was forced to fly to Geneva and then endure an eight-hour overnight train to the coast. He didn?t arrive until 8am, and warned that BA was going to have to pay out a hefty amount for the inconvenience.