Good times/Bad times

We round up who's leading a charmed life and who's cursing their luck in the IT industry this week

Good times

Telecoms operators
We can only hope that the customer service rep who signed a deal with reseller Misco for its telephony service was on some kind of pay-as-they-use commission structure.
It emerged last week that the VAR has told sales staff they must put in two and a half hours of "Talktime" each day on customer calls. In an internal video spoof of the Liam Neeson film Taken (no, we don't know either), sales chief Richard Logan warned those not hitting their chat quota he would "hunt you down... and PIP you".
PIP (Personal Improvement Plan) is a performance-monitoring scheme of which some staff are reportedly not big fans. Reports that Misco sales bods are trying to up their wallet share with the speaking clock are unconfirmed.

RM rivals
With education stalwart RM on its way out of the hardware game, former competitors were scrambling to snaffle the lucrative leftovers last week.
As its hardware operation entered its final days, the system builder reportedly still had 2,500 to 3,000 chassis it was contracted to equip and supply to customers. Sources indicate RM was also after a referral partner for customers' datacentre and desktop needs.
As we write Insight, Centerprise and Misco were understood to be in the mix.

Eavesdropping
In the tech equivalent of turning up to the Oscars in the same dress, security rivals Trend Micro and Kaspersky have only gone and moved into new offices in the same swanky London skyscraper.
Neither party admitted the clash was a mistake, but we can't help but think the cringeworthy scenarios of the rivals' staff sharing awkward trips in the lift and canteen queues were not top of their must-have list when they scoped out new locations.
"We do not see their presence as an issue for our business at all," said Kaspersky's head of marketing David Preston, before peering over the garden fence and muttering "there goes the neighbourhood".

Bad times

Stiff upper lips
The process of finding a new chief executive at Microsoft is taking an emotional toll on the firm's leaders. Current boss Steve Ballmer burst into tears before he sashayed out of his final staff gathering to the sounds of Dirty Dancing soundtrack hit Time Of My Life, and now Bill Gates is at it.
When updating analysts on the firm's search for a new CEO, Gates found himself fighting back tears when talking about the key criteria of Ballmer's successor.
"We [have] a commitment to make sure that the next CEO is the right person, for the right time, for the company we both love," he blubbed.
Oh stop it, Bill, you're starting us off.

Internet of Things students
There is nothing worse than jumping on a new fad just before its shelf life is about to expire. But that's exactly what students set to study a BSc in the Internet of Things are about to do, according to some VARs.
The new degree will begin next year at Staffordshire University in association with HP, and will offer students in-depth knowledge about the industry trend which analysts expect to explode over the coming years.
But some VARs said by the time students graduate, the trend will have moved on, leaving them with a pointless degree, while another described it as a "research paper gone into the wild".
Other resellers were more sympathetic and said passion for IT was more important than a degree title, but we can't help but feel sorry for the future students. We know how they feel: we'd only just perfected our Gangnam Style moves when twerking came along...

Smartwatches
Despite all the hype, the smartwatch will seemingly not be this year's Tickle Me Elmo or Tracy Island, with Gartner predicting "lacklustre" festive sales of the wrist-based computers.
The analyst added that models from vendors such as Samsung have thus far been "rather uninspiring". Gartner abacus-fondler Annette Zimmermann predicted that, as it stands, consumers would rather pay the same amount for a low-end tablet.
"Users expect more than just more convenience from a new product category that claims to be innovative and priced at $200 to $300," she harrumphed.
Though we should also point out that in November 1996 Gartner predicted the Tickle Me Elmo would "enjoy limited penetration due to a lack of both enterprise-grade functionality and compelling business use cases".