Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery

UK telecomms behemoth, BT, is online for a close encounter after employing a being from another planet to help market its services and products. No, we’re not talking about Chris Evans. ET -- the extra terrestrial star of the movie that shared his name -- is to feature in a £60 million ad campaign for the telecomms giant urging people to "stay in touch." The bog-eyed rubber-faced creature with a neck that looks like an elephant's trunk (Hmm, thought you said this wasn’t about Chris Evans - Ed) will urge people to use email and the Internet -- as well as the phone -- to "stay in touch." In a twist that can only be explained by some paranormal interference, ET won't be uttering the immortal line from the film -- "phone home." It seems BT's advertising supremos think that such an obvious link would be, erm too obvious, so they decided instead to ditch this famous phrase in favour of something a little less catchy. "BT today is so much more than a telephone company and we have so much more to offer to all the citizens of the new communicating society," said Bill Cockburn, group MD BT UK. "When ET was first on Earth he was only able to 'phone home'." "As we enter the 21st Century, we provide many other options to stay in touch, be it through, data transfer or multimedia," he said. In that case, perhaps someone should say: "ET, fax off." BT would not comment on rumours that two alien survivors of the Roswell incident had been offered the job first but lost out after holding out for a higher fee. ®

Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery