Good times, bad times
Who was set fair, and who had a 'mare, in the channel last week?
Good times
Mike Lynch
The UK Serious Fraud Office concluded recently that it has insufficient evidence with which to pursue a case against former senior managers at Autonomy.
HP shopped members of the software vendor's leadership team to authorities on both sides of the pond less than 18 months after it bought the Cambridge-based company.
The US titan continues to maintain its allegations that ex-CEO Mike Lynch and his mob cooked the books of Autonomy - a charge those accused have always vehemently denied.
Although US authorities are still investigating the case, the ever-voluble Lynch claimed that the UK verdict means "HP now faces serious questions of its own". Presumably starting with: "You paid how much?!"
Pure Storage
Feisty flash fledging Pure Storage has never been afraid to sing its own praises, but January has seen its ego swell further.
It kicked off the year with yet another tirade against its nemesis EMC, but this time its attack was fiercer than ever, claiming that the storage giant is leading on its flash technology only to stop it getting there first. It then rubbed salt into the wound and announced it had lured EMC's UK managing director James Petter to the role of EMEA vice president. Ouch.
Pure may have been victorious in the latest fight against EMC, but who knows what lies ahead for the duo? *Ding ding* Round 134,002....
Romance
Valentine's Day can be stressful for romantic Romeos and Juliets looking to outdo their efforts from last year.
But Recruiter Merlin Corp is coming to the rescue, offering channel folk the chance to cruise around in a Ferrari California for Valentine's weekend. Anyone who refers an NHS-focused software-asset-management employee to the recruiter - which then places them in a role before the big day - will be able to drive off with the prize (for 48 hours, that is...).
While we've no doubt a Ferarri would impress some on a first date, we can't help wonder what happens after that when the prize winner rocks up in their Volvo estate.
Bad times
Coraid
Running out of cash is a fairly common problem in January, but for most of us the consequences are no more severe than switching to own-brand cleaning products, or reducing our takeaway frequency.
But when you're a vendor backed by more than $100m in venture capital, the outlook is more grave. This month Ethernet storage player Coraid confirmed it was working to "significantly reduce the size of the company" after depleting its reserves. Efforts over the last few months to drum up more investment have proved fruitless, confirmed CEO Dave Kresse.
We wish any affected employees and partners well.
IBM
If a company shrinks for 11 quarters in a row, that's bad, right? Not according to IBM boss Ginni Rometty, who managed to put a positive spin on a set of Q4 numbers that saw sales fall across each of the tech giant's five major units. IBM now hasn't seen growth since Q1 of 2012, when dinosaurs were still roaming the earth.
No matter: Rometty is one of life's glass-half-full types and insisted IBM is making "significant progress" in its transformation to higher-value technology such as cloud and mobile.
If IBM gets any smaller, its nickname might have to be changed to the admittedly less catchy ‘Medium-sized Blue'.
Oneupmanship
Having so much money that it is impossible to decide what to do with it is a burden most do not have. But for multi-billionaires Bill Gates and Larry Ellison, the problem is all too real.
The Microsoft founder recently funded what is essentially a poo factory: a US facility which boils human poo and turns it into water to provide sanitation to developing countries. And, not to be outdone, a week or so later, it emerged that Oracle's Ellison also dropped the big bucks on a charitable cause: a Californian wildlife centre designed to help injured bugs and orphaned animals.
Neither billionaire disclosed how much each charitable project set them back, but we doubt the pair will be counting down to the next payday.