Good times, bad times
Who has been top of the pops and who has hit a bum note over the last fortnight?
Good times
‘Celeb' endorsements
If we were going on a huge recruitment drive, the one person we would want on our side is an Apprentice winner wannabe.
Pterodactyl-impersonating Lee McQueen (pictured) has been recruited by Softcat to help the VAR grab "second jobbers" through his company The Raw Talent Academy. Apparently it holds special audition days when they carry out scenario-based tasks that are similar to those used on The Apprentice. We hope these include selling live on a shopping channel, and creating a "memorable" TV advert.
EMC partners
The storage titan made waves last year with news that, as of the start of 2015, it was increasing the annual revenue requirement for top-level Platinum partners to an eyebrow-raising $65m. The bar for Gold and Silver partners was also upped to $15m and $1.25m, but EMC claims the rejig has not affected the number of partners qualifying for rebates.
About 400 VARs across EMEA - including four Platinum and 102 Gold partners - are receiving back-end dosh from the vendor, which channel tsar Philippe Fosse claimed represents an increase on last year. The partner boss also believes "at least 80 per cent" of resellers would be making more total profit under the new scheme.
Transparency
Google's "Right to be Forgotten" ruling with the European Court of Justice celebrated its first birthday recently, and it was revealed that just 41 per cent of requests had actually been processed, meaning 59 per cent had been unsuccessful.
This is a victory for common sense everywhere - it is impossible to erase the past. It will always catch up with you in the end.
Bad times
Women in IT
Cloud firm Fortacloud sparked a Twitter storm recently when it tweeted details of a half-price promotion alongside a picture of a lingerie model in a provocative pose.
Many followers of the cloud firm instantly took offence to the use of the image - which appeared to have nothing to do with its cloud promotion - branding it "sexist" and "ridiculous". Fortacloud hit back at some of its critics, defending its decision by insisting that 99 per cent of its customers are young men.
"Wow, look at that beautiful lingerie model! I just MUST go out and buy some cloud services!" said no one, ever.
Logicalis
The integrator recently revealed that last year it suffered the most disappointing loss in Wales since Leyton Orient's grossly unfortunate defeat in the 2001 Third Division Play-Off Final. A trading update from parent company Datatec outlined that its reseller arm endured a three per cent organic drop in worldwide revenues in 2014, with product sales slumping 4.9 per cent.
The UK was picked out as a particular drag on the top line, as "results were significantly impacted by the loss of a long-term contract with the Welsh Assembly Government". Mae bob amser y flwyddyn nesaf, as any Welsh football fan might tell you.
The planet
If you think the Internet of Things (IoT) is all fun and games and internet-enabled fridges, you are wrong, according to Greenpeace, which said there is a dark side to the rocketing trend.
In a recent report, the campaign group said the IoT trend is actually set to deepen the world's carbon footprint thanks to the soaring amounts of energy needed to power the billions of connected devices and the facilities on which all the data they generate is stored.
"This shift may simply be enabling much higher levels of consumption, ultimately increasing the total amount of electricity consumed," said Greenpeace. Well that's us told, then.