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Ruperts Weekly Roundup (7/2/2000)

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Rupert Goodwins AnchorDesk

Published: 14 Mar 2000 16:34 GMT

MONDAY

The virus of viruses
If you have a taste for the bizarre and grotesque and have tired of Jerry Springer, I have an alternative. Go to an anti-virus conference. I've been to two, and a bigger collection of out-and-out weirdos would be hard to imagine.

Virus experts come in many varieties. Some are normal, well-balanced human beings, and some are not. But the ones that are not are right at the end of the scale: intense, focussed, utterly driven and completely incapable of world views at odds to their own. They also have a wide variety of accents, as for some reason many hail from Eastern Europe, the Indian subcontinent and quite possibly Neptune.

That's OK. What's not OK is the way that the companies which employ these paragons of perversity only make money if people consider viruses to be a huge and continuing assault from armies of hyperintelligent hackers. And so, obfuscation, hype and industrial-strength scaremongering are far from unknown in the business - and every statement from companies that make money from anti-virus software, or individuals who consult therein, absolutely must be taken with an entire Dead Sea's worth of salt. Unfortunately, the mainstream media is often far too happy to collaborate with this...

Is this happening now with the Linux virus scare? I think so. You'll have to decide for yourself, of course, but do keep that calcium chloride handy. Take me there

The real Y2K virus: P45
So, what's the odd man out from Boo, Amazon and the Millennium Dome? Answer: the Dome, which is 'not laying off anyone because of lack of visitors' despite the rumours. The other two are laying off people, but not because of lack of visitors. Goodness me, no. Nor because of seasonal fluctuations, which means people don't buy much after Christmas and the New Year, nor because of lack of sales in general. Nor because .com companies have spent a whole sledload of Xmas dosh on advertisments, all nullified because there were ten million other .com companies doing exactly the same, and thus have no money left for boring old legacy expenses like wages.

Nope - it's 'internal reorganisation' time. And that's an end to it. Honest. Take me there

Could be worse, could be called the Electric Light Orchestra...
Philips just won't give up, bless it. It keeps on producing things that are almost, but not quite, what are required - cordless phones with handsfree on the handset, for example, that have the microphone somewhere where it can't hear you and batteries that can't quite keep up.

Now it's going into the MP3 player market, with a machine that uses RealAudio's technology. Sounds good. I haven't seen one yet so can't say whether it's got that trademark Philips not-quite-rightness (also known as the Homer, because when you find it you slap your forehead and say "D'oh!"), but one aspect of it almost qualifies. Why, in the name of all that's holy, did they name a cutting-edge digital audio consumer device after a decades-old progressive rock band who were cliches even while they stalked the earth? I mean, Rush! King Crimson would've been cool. Beefheart endearingly weird and even Yes would have shown a certain amount of chutzpah. But Rush. Really. . . Take me there

Go goes ga-ga
Another little quiz for you. Read the following extract from the news, and answer the questions beneath. 5 marks per question, please write on one side of the screen only.

"I call it an evolution," Bornstein said. "It's evolving into maximizing the sweet spot of what I think the Walt Disney company is, which is an entertainment and leisure company."

When an executive talks about 'evolution' do you think they mean a logical, organic development of a successful concept, or the sort of thing that happened when enormous lumbering organisations get it really badly wrong?

Where do you think Walt Disney's sweet spot is? What do you think it tastes of?

The writer is a senior executive at Walt Disney. What do you think he thought the company did if he's only just worked out that it's an entertainment and leisure company?

Do you think there's any chance whatsoever that Disney's Go network will recoup a fraction of the billions of dollars spent on it?

Answers in in two hours, please. The winner gets to be a senior online development manager for three days, or twice the normal expected career span. Take me there