Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Thursday 24 January 2008, 5:01 PM
Tiscali's 'sell-off' plans and the media
Sometimes you see a story, reported in a respected publication, but where the semi-exciting headline isn't exactly backed up by direct quotes in the story itself. Take this FT interview with Tiscali boss Tommaso Pompei. The headline: "Tiscali boss expects to be targeted by rivals". A company? Targeted by its rivals? Shurely not!
The direct quotes to support this? "This year for sure we'll be 100 per cent focused on our results, but we are prepared to react should the consolidation take place... This year is crucial for our company because, as anticipated, it will be a turnover of the new strategy and the new plan, with important financial results to be achieved... Once we are there, let's see what happens, and we are open to consider all alternatives." So far, so vague.
The subsequent headlines in other publications (who shall remain nameless, although feel free to Google away)? "Tiscali chief plots sell-off"; "Tiscali expected to sell UK broadband operations"; "Tiscali to sell up 'within two years'"; and "Tiscali expects sales of ISPs".
Now, in that FT piece there were these bits of reported speech: "Mr Pompei said he did not see many opportunities for Tiscali to buy rivals, and therefore it was more likely that the company’s UK and Italian broadband operations would be sold... However, he said the company was not for sale... Mr Pompei said Tiscali's UK and Italian operations represented the only remaining independent broadband operations for rivals to buy if they wanted to increase market share significantly." As a hack who wants to be 100 percent sure of the veracity of his articles, this leaves me in a tricky position as to what Mr Pompei actually said.
A position made all the trickier by these words from a Tiscali spokesperson today: "As already said several times in the past and as reported by the CEO in the article, Tiscali is not for sale. Tiscali has not received any kind of formal proposal for a sale, and the management is committed to deliver on the targets announced. If in the future any kind of proposal arrives, it will be up to the shareholders to decide".
Which, like the direct quotes in that FT piece, kind of applies to most listed companies. Hence no story, but perhaps time will prove me wrong...
Thursday 24 January 2008, 1:05 PM
Oh Moto
Dismal. That's the only word that springs to mind when looking at the news coming out of Motorola in the last day or two. Q4 net income down 84 percent (!). Sales down 19 percent. New handsets delayed until the end of this year because, as far as I can tell, they have no idea how to grab back the market for whom the once iconic Razr (d.o.b. 2004) is now old hat.
From the FT:
Motorola's shareholders have grown used to disappointing news in the past year or so. But weak fourth-quarter results and another gloomy outlook from the handset maker on Wednesday prompted many to abandon altogether any hope of a bounce-back – Motorola’s already battered shares had fallen another 19 per cent by Wednesday's close.
Not a good week - or year - to be new CEO Greg Brown, then...
Monday 21 January 2008, 5:31 PM
It wasn't just one MoD laptop...
Whoops - defence secretary Des Browne has just revealed to parliament that it's not just one MoD laptop that's been stolen - it's three.
One was taken from a car in Manchester in October 2006, and another from an army careers office in Edinburgh in 2005.
Browne: "[This was] reported at the time to the police and the local chain of command, but not to ministers. No steps were taken to inform those whose records were put at risk [because we thought, wrongly, that the data was encrypted]. Nor was the Information Commissioner informed. There is nothing to suggest that [these] earlier thefts were exploited.... The data on none of these three laptops was encrypted."
And the quote of the year thus far, from our esteemed defence sec:
"I did not say that the MoD has robust policies, systems and procedures; I said they had clear policies, systems and procedures."
So that's alright then!
"The robustness of those policies and procedures depends on them being observed," Browne continued. "I cannot give the House an explanation as to why [so much information was held on the laptop]. I don’t believe it did need to be on a laptop."
A full review of the situation, led by former police tech chief Sir Edmund Burton, will begin immediately...
Meanwhile, for those of us who see some parallel here with the proposed ID cards database, back to Mr Browne:
"There is a relevance to the protection of data clearly in relation to the ID cards scheme [but] the ID cards scheme is underpinned by biometric data which will protect people’s data from being taken or used [inappropriately]."
"I have an understanding of how important these issues are."
Monday 21 January 2008, 11:44 AM
Social networking: IT vs HR
Social networking costs UK businesses £6.5bn a year, according to a poll conducted by Global Secure Systems and Infosec 2008.
The poll was conducted "amongst 776 office workers, who admitted to spending at least 30 minutes a day visiting social networking sites whilst at work", according to their press release. "The end result is potentially billions of pounds in lost productivity, maintain GSS, plus the extra demand on bandwidth which is an additional cost to a business in terms of efficiency, maintenance and resources."
That bandwidth cost? As much as 30pc, according to some CIOs.
But here's the interesting thing: according to Infosec event organiser Claire Sellick, "it would appear that most CISO and IT Directors loathe social networking sites and if they had their way would ban them completely, but what is also coming across loud and clear is that the HR departments actually welcome the use of these sites – so there is a lot of internal pushing and shoving going on between HR and IT over how best to manage these sites."
I recall recently sitting next to a tech (OK, tech PR) recruiter at an awards dinner, and this chap was telling me that any applicant he screens is going to be at a disadvantage if they're not on certain social networking sites. Recruiters and HR love the things. Like stalkers, it gives them an opportunity to learn a lot about a person without having to actually speak to them (yet another reason to be careful what you put up there).
And, of course, then there's the yoof. Over to GSS MD David Hobson: "Social networking sites are now integral to the way that many of the latest and youngest recruits into the workforce communicate and work, so for some sectors social networking sites may have a part to play in terms of competitive advantage or used for research or as a marketing tool. It comes down to a fine balancing act – and mostly a case of introducing a 'reasonable use' policy."
Security concerns aside - I'm not ignoring them, it's just that they're obvious - I really wonder how many of these lost-productivity stories take into account the value that social networks can bring to a business. How many deals are kicked off through some event that one party only finds out about through a contact's mini-feed? I notice that these stories only ever talk about MySpace, Facebook and Bebo - what about, say, LinkedIn? Just because it's for suits doesn't make it any less of a social network, and a huge chunk of its user base is surely also merrily tapping away on Facebook.
If social networking is stretching your bandwidth usage, deal with it. Better yet, start lobbying the telco industry to up the bandwidth and cut prices. Like it or not, this is the new world (sorry, "paradigm") - like anything, it comes with good and bad. Sticking your fingers in your ears is not sustainable.
Friday 18 January 2008, 4:18 PM
Are you on the right tariff?
A fairly disturbing report suggests that Britons are wasting £8.45bn per year through being on the wrong mobile tariffs.
From the release:
The study by price comparison website moneysupermarket.com reveals a typical user enjoys 166 free voice minutes and 133 texts per month as part of their tariff or top up package. However, on average, British mobile phone customers use 23 voice minutes and 23 texts over their inclusive allowance, which means they could be paying up to an extra £130 per year.
The results also show that half of the respondents did not know how many minutes (27 per cent) or texts (23 per cent) they use each month, leaving them prone to additional charges. However, customers are confused about what their tariff includes as one in seven (16 per cent) don’t know how many free minutes they have, and one in six (17 per cent) don’t know how many texts are included.
There are two reasons I'm blogging this rather than writing a full-blown news story about it: firstly, it's based on an online survey (not a good start if you want to be scientific about things); secondly, we write about business users - if you as a professional whatever aren't paying attention to how many minutes etc are included in your tariffs, you deserve to pay over the odds.
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