Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Tuesday 5 June 2007, 5:40 PM
They're justified and they're Intel, and they drive an ice cream van
Intel has hit on the one tactic that cannot fail. Send an ice cream van to park outside the offices of another company, and announce that there is free ice cream for all.
See the huge line of employees not at their desk. See the harrassed donor of frozen delights trying to cope with Sharon, our office manager, whose every whim is law. See too, if you have exceptionally sharp eyesight, every last scrap of work in the company not being done.
However, I'm not going to tell you what was being promoted. Just because I've been given an ice-cream doesn't mean I've been bought. And anyway, the chimes didn't go "ding-dong ding-DONG". There were no flakes. And when I asked for a dual core, I got given a funny look.
AMD, the summer has yet to start. May I suggest frozen margaritas? Product name mention guaranteed... (although to get a link you'll have to stretch to South Gin martinis, straight up with a twist. That's martinis, the plural of martini.)
PreviousComments on this post
I did not understand what really happened, and where. Could you explain simply?
To tell the truth, I'm not entirely sure. But I can tell you what it looked like.
I was sitting at my desk working hard (as I said, that's what it looked like), when I became aware of large numbers of my co-workers heading with some speed towards the exit.
"Free ice cream, man", said one of the design team. "Like, Intel has gone totally free with the ice cream."
I merged with the crowd. Downstairs, I discovered that an ice cream van had parked outside the ZDNet offices, and that a large queue had formed. The van was painted in a frosty Intel theme - as per picture - so it seemed likely to be some sort of publicity stunt. As I waited in the queue, a woman with a large box handed me a 1GB USB memory stick (of which, I fear, much more later). I got to the end of the queue, an ice cream (one scoop, Mr Whippy, vanilla, cone) and some pictures of the van for the blog (a special thank to all my co-workers who made unpublishable gestures, Ben. Your time will come. Oh yes.) and returned to my desk to write the blog entry above.
Does that help?
Probably Intel is trying to capture the sympathy of ZDNet bloggers. Its action to crush the OLPC is simply disgusting. Being the originator of the microprocessor, I expected Intel to be a wise company. Instead, it is acting as a greedy predator. Ice cream will not redeem it from our negative opinion, isn't it?
Intel always puts the best spin on its actions, and an ice cream cone here or there doesn't change that. It's a multi-billion dollar company, and behaves like one. I trust some of the people I know in Intel, and I think what the company actually does is far more important than what it says. But that's true of every organisation I know.
I don't think it's trying to crush the OLPC. It may be trying to compete with it, but that's a different story.
Reminds me of the Child Catcher scene from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...
We got the van at ITN today. Huge queue formed within seconds.
As well as icecream they had a bucket of 1GB USB keys, 'Xeon inside' apparently...
Ah yes, I saw it at ITN as I whooshed past on the bus.
Beware of the keys - check out the next blog post to find out why...
