Steve Ballmer has written an email to a host of Microsoft customers in which he constantly reminds us of the importance of technology. Specifically Microsoft technology.

Although the email is supposed to be positive, one can't help but imagine it being drawn up in some high, darkened tower by a fleet of lackies while Ballmer walks menacingly around a table, hacking up soundbites. "Today, people borrow less, save more, and spend with much greater caution," he notes. "This is the new normal and it will be with us for some time to come. The issue now is how to respond." (*cue fist hitting table).

Go on then. Tell us Steve! What do we need? "The new normal requires a new kind of efficiency built on technology innovations that enable businesses and organisations to simultaneously drive cost savings, improve productivity, and speed innovation." Oh...technology solutions.
We probably should have guessed.

Undeterred, Steve tells us to do more with less, which is pretty obvious stuff and could also be applied to Ballmer's haircut. "To build a sustainable competitive advantage, companies must ultimately do two things - increase productivity and find ways to deliver new value to customers. The issue, then, is how can organisations take costs out of their operations, increase productivity, and expand their capacity for innovation all at the same time?", he adds.

Steve, if we were playing hangman would the answer to that question look a bit like this, 't_chnolo_y'? We get the message so far. Perhaps you could be a bit more specific?

"This year, Microsoft is introducing a wave of new software created specifically to enable businesses to tackle their most pressing challenges and strengthen their ability to deliver innovation to the marketplace. It starts with Windows 7." What a surprise, but do go on...

"We've also just released a new version of our server operating system. Windows Server 2008 R2 is designed to increase the reliability and flexibility of server infrastructures."

This is getting boring. Shall we summarise? Basically we'll survive if we help you to prosper. Nice.

Wow. Thanks for the email Steve. Perhaps next time you'll have the decency to ask about the family.

September 29, 2009 Business intelligence | Permalink | Comments (0)

Incredibly Noel Edmonds' iPhone app for Cosmic Ordering, launched on 17 September, is now the most downloaded lifestyle iPhone app on the whole bloody App Store.

'What's an app for cosmic ordering' you say? Thank god for that - we thought the whole world had gone mad. Cosmic ordering might sound like a different way of saying 'voices in the head' but is actually a 'new age' way of getting what you want for your birthday.

Edmonds reckons that the Cosmos is here just to serve us - which sounds a bit self-indulgent to Sneak - while the very concept is the sort of hokey thinking that makes people on that awful Deal or No Deal show choose a box because their aunt once had a dream in which there were an equivalent number of elephants riding bicycles. Apparently users of the app write down what they want and then leave it to the Cosmos to give it to them. Once they have 'it' they write down some notes on the whole experience.

Noel Edmonds' Cosmic Order app costs £1.19 and has a truly awful photograph of Noel accompanying it. We imagine that if you really wish hard enough you'll get your copy for free... If you dare.

Edmonds himself credits Cosmic Ordering for a lot of his success - which leaves us with just one conclusion. It's the Devil's work! Burn it! Burn it!

September 29, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lily Allen is quitting the music business (rejoice!), maybe (oh).

Ms Allen is apparently ticked off at the business of people going around finding music that they like and sharing it with their friends.

Lily started a blog - called 'It's not alright' - as a vehicle for ranting on and on about how evil file sharing was but mysteriously pulled it down a couple of days later. Why? The smart money says that it's because she ripped a chunk of text off another web site without crediting it - which is somewhat ironic, given the message she was trying to put across

Further cementing this flimsy stance, she's also removed a couple of previously available mix tapes from her web site. Again, why? A quick listen on the Sneak iPod finds that they contain a lot of samples. Did she get the correct clearance on those? Was the whole business of piracy and music theft less important when it wasn't her lavish lifestyle that was at risk? We'll let you cynics decide.

In the meantime if you want to stay on Lily's side you should try and avoid her. We suggest that if you like her music you keep it to yourself, don't recommend it to anyone - and definitely never listen to it unless you have paid for the privilege. If at all.

September 28, 2009 Music, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (2)

In a remarkable and some might say all-too-fleeting display of honesty, a senior Microsoft executive has branded Vista a "less good product".

According to reports, the shocking revelation was made by Charles Songhurst, Microsoft's general manager of corporate strategy, at an investor's conference.

"What people underestimate is the importance of good or bad products," he is reported by those who could be bothered to sit through the entire thing, as saying.

"And sometimes your products are good, sometimes the products are bad. And I think Vista was a less good product for Microsoft."

Less good? Presumably Songhurst was hinting at what analysts, investors, and more importantly, users, have known for quite some time - that Vista is a bloaty, slow, underwhelming operating system which has failed to supplant XP in most organisations.

Although Microsoft has acknowledged in the past that mistakes have been made with the OS, it has never been so outspoken in its criticism of the software.

However, before anyone believes this remark represents the turning over of a gloriously candid new leaf, think again. Songhurst went on to sing the praises of Redmond's next attempt, the "extremely good" and "brilliantly developed" Windows 7.

September 17, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (15)

An unorthodox race in South Africa has revealed that it's quicker to transmit 4GB of data via pigeon than it is to send it over the country's main ADSL services.

An IT company in Durban decided to hold a competition to test a theory once discussed over the watercooler. Would it be faster to use a carrier pigeon to send data than to use the country's biggest web firm, Telkom? Bad news for Telkom - yes, it is.

In the race held Wednesday between Howick and Hillcrest, a pigeon named Winston managed to transport a 4GB memory stick 60 miles in just two hours, the same amount of time it took the firm's web connection to transmit just four percent of the data. Of course, Telkom said that slow speeds at its customer end have nothing to do with it.

Overall though, estimates suggest that it would have taken days to send the data, which would have given Winston the winged rat loads of time to 'decorate' many statues of military heroes before finally turning up to claim his victory bread crust.

Like Telkom we can't be sure what is wrong with the firm's web connection, but old school methods of delivery have long been favoured by those in the know. Some people still use the old practice of moving files between machines on floppy disks - remember them? And way back in the 1970s, Dr. Warren Jackson said: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes." Nothing has changed, actually.

Winston the pigeon already has over 3,000 friends on Facebook. We don't imagine that anyone at Telkom is one of them.

September 10, 2009 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (2)

We all know how exciting Business Process Management (BPM) can be, and I'm sure you'll be exited to learn to learn that IBM has developed a game called Innov8 which lets users test their business decision making skills.

The 3D simulation game can be played through a browser or as a fully downloadable client and takes data based on real life scenarios and lets users make decisions and see how well they turn out.

One example scenario sees the player as a supplier faced with an approaching hurricane. The user must then organise emergency shipments of supplies to various stores - deciding which vendors/suppliers to purchase from to effectively balance demand, company profitability, environmental impact and customer satisfaction.

As an added bonus, the mini-games are accompanied by a set of 3D interactive tutorials that explain the business value of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for the three scenarios showcased in the games, using data from real case studies and real clients.

The game is already part of the University of Manchester Business School curriculum and several other universities and business schools are looking at incorporating it into their teaching.

For the truly competitive, there are also public online scoreboards to compare your achievements with every other Innov8 player.

When the trailer begins (yes it has a trailer) with a gravelly voice saying: "Enter a world where cities reduce traffic congestion before your eyes, companies revolutionise customer service and business streamline supply chains..." you know you can't resist.

September 9, 2009 Games, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)

Currys and PC World have become the latest firms to come under the media spotlight for all the wrong reasons, after staff unleashed a torrent of abuse at their customers via social networking site Facebook.

Parent company the Dixons Store Group international (DSGi) is said to be investigating the incidents after current and ex-employees reportedly branded customers "really stupid", "arseholes" and "fu**tards" on an unofficial Facebook group titled DSGi employees.

Discussion boards for the 3,000+ strong group have been given titles such as "Arsehole customers", "Really Stupid customers" and "Chatting up customers", giving a fairly good insight into the kind of topics discussed therein.

DSGi has since come out with a statement saying that it has "clear guidelines for staff and will investigate any alleged abuse of customers", adding that it's just a small number of staff who are responsible for the comments.

The news follows similar incidents at BA, where staff complained on Facebook about passengers with "stupid American accents", and over at rival Virgin Atlantic, whose staff labeled their customers "chavs".

It's highly symptomatic of an age where large corporates are struggling to come up with and enforce clear policies ruling what staff can and can't say on social networking and other public-facing sites.

If DSGi does indeed have clear guidelines for staff, as it says, then those few who made the comments should be in line for a dismissal, and will stand as a warning to others to keep these kind of remarks private.

But if, as is more likely the case, any guidelines were poorly communicated and not prescriptive enough, DSGi will only have itself to blame, and a mammoth PR exercise on its hands in order to win back the trust and respect of its customers.

Web 2.0 can do wonders for a company's profile and facilitate closer corporate-customer ties than have ever been possible before. Or, if your staff decide to use the technology to call your customers ignorant tight-fisted tw*ts, it could go some way towards ruining your business.

September 7, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (9)

YouTube has struck a deal with the Performing Rights Society (PRS) to re-enable viewing of premium videos in the UK.

Under pressure from the music industry, YouTube attempted to remove copyrighted material from its UK servers six months ago, with limited success.

The PRS, which represents music creators and performers and makes sure they get paid whenever their music is played in clubs, pubs and shopping centres, has secured an undisclosed sum thought to be in the tens of millons of pounds to keep Paul McCartney in gold-plated lawn furniture until 2012.

The deal, which covers 'official music videos' rather than the shaky footage your sister took of Kings of Leon playing at Brixton Academy, has taken such a long time to nail down because of the complexity of YouTube, the international music industry and the fact that the PRS has 60,000 active members all holding out their hands for a slice of the online pie.

But the money won't all go for sable-lined Bentleys and indoor swimming pools to drive them into, apparently. The PRS reckons that 90 per cent of its membership - which includes composers, songwriters, musicians and other performers - earn less than £5,000 a year.

YouTube has always shown a willingness to compensate performers but, before this current round of negotiations took place, PRS lawyers were said to be seeking payments so out of line with the benefits to be obtained that the world's most popular web site had no choice but to pull the plug.

In fact, at one point the whole row got so nasty that technology minister Lord Carter was dragged into the ring in order to stop the handbags flying.

Google-owned YouTube has said that the tens of thousands of missing videos should reappear over the next few days.

September 3, 2009 Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)