Barker Bites Back

IT people don't care about the environment apparently, at least according to the annual survey by the Chartered Management Institute.
Only 12 percent of managers in the sector intend to offset the carbon footprint created by long-haul flights, apparently. And we like long haul flights to Canada our second favourite summer holiday spot, it says in the press release. Along with the Greek islands.
And we will carry on flying to, at lease until the ozone layer coughs its last, because only 10 percent of us claim to have any intention of cutting back on the number of flights we take.
But where we are going to fit in all these flights is a moot point since 63 percent said they will not use their full holiday entitlement this year.
Now come on, boys and girls, who is trying to kid who here?

IBM's time dominating the top of the supercomputing pile has ended for now.Although the Armonk giant may still hold the number one spot in the latest supercomputer Top 500 still it no longer holds the top five spots as it did last year .So well done to the people from Cray for clawing back the number two and number three positions.
And surely the most surprising contender when it first appeared, Dell, is still there, clutching on to number eight position (down from six last year) and with SGI in number 10 spot, doing its but to stop IBM ruling the roost.
So well done to IBM for holding six of the top 10 spots but stay on your toes, others are waiting for any sign of weakness.

Mark Hurd went from running NCR to running what is now, arguably, the largest IT company in the world, HP. He must be doing something right so here are some collected thoughts of the great man taken from two sessions held this week at HP's gathering in Las Vegas (see story). And he likes numbers. Big numbers. Lots of big numbers. In fact he has an amazing command of big numbers.

1. How big can HP get?
"Analysts estimate that HP will be roughly $100bn company."
2. What was wrong at HP before he strode into town?
"At HP our costs were expanding quicker than our revenue. That is not a good situation."
3. What is right at HP, now he is in town?
"Costs were the same at HP in 2007 that they were in 2005. We have been efficient and able to grow at the same time."
4. Wisdom.
"When the supply chains breaks, bad stuff happens."
5. On R&D.
"HP has had $20 bn in R&D in the last five years."
6. Numbers.
"The company ships three printers every second. We ship two PCs a second. We ship a server every 10 seconds."
7. Why truth makes life simpler.
"We have one version of the truth for HP."
8. On limitations.
"People come to me with ideas for new products and sometime I have to say we can't do it. And I can't acquire everybody." HP bought another company on Monday.
9. On the environment.
10. On the difference in HP.
"Twenty years ago roughly 70 percent of the company was hardware. Last year, roughly 70 percent was software.

What is wrong with IBM? On Wednesday the company sort of announced that it had a blade server for SMEs. I say sort of announced because while IBM said it was launching a blade for SMEs, which would have been a neat trick since blade's are complex and expensive, it did not actually tell us anything about this "virtual" blade. Instead, the press release droned on (and on and on) telling us about the potential benefits of blades for SMEs without telling us anything about the blade itself. Nothing at all in fact.
What IBM did go into some detail about was telling us that: "IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice".
And more of the same.
So what are we to glean from this. Simple, IBM may be launching a blade for SMEs but not until the fourth quarter of this year and not
even then, possibly.
This sort of non-announment went out of fashion soon after various companies were sued forspoiling markets by pre-announcing non-existent products. ( eg "Don't by so-and-so's blade now, ours is coming along soon and will be MUCH better.")
Hopefully that sort of drastic action is not needed now. Come on IBM, we expect better of you than that.

Bill Gates is considering a possible flight into space according to the French news agency, AFP. A Russian cosmonaut revealed the news while orbiting the planet on the International Space Station on Wednesday.
The source of the story was apparently Gates’ former colleague, current Charles Simonyi, the most wealthy space tourist to orbit the planet earth so far and likely to see this record broken should Gates make the trip.
According to cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, "Charles said that Bill Gates is also preparing to visit space so the next time someone will be with Bill Gates. For me this is the biggest surprise of our flight."
The news was revealed during a broadcast from space seen on Russian TV.
According to AFP, the likely first available flight for Gates could be as early as 2009. A spokesman for the Russian space agency, Igor Panarin, confirmed that Gates had visited the space centre near Moscow “several months ago at the cosmonaut training centre at Star City” but refused to say if talk of making the trip himself was mentioned by Gates at the time.
It is unlikely that Microsoft could raise any issues that would prevent such a trip since Gates is Chairman but holds no line management position. Companies could get quite jumpy of senior management started popping up into space every time they felt like blowing a few millions.
And goodness knows, there was a time when Gates’ enemies may have wished for nothing better than for Bill to risk his neck in something as foolhardy as space travel.
Now, they would probably only ask if he could persuade Steve Ballmer to make the trip.