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The Reg's review of 2014: Naked JLaw selfies, Uber and monkey madness

Put it on a stick and 'cheesie'

Microsoft, Apple and U2

Millions of Apple users got more than they bargained the morning after Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus launch in September: a free copy of U2’s Songs of Innocence in their iTunes - whether they wanted it or not. And many did not.

U2 had performed at the hyped Californian event under the smiling gaze of self-outed Apple CEO Tim Cook. U2 front man Bono had determined receiving his Grammy-award winning band’s album would be a “treat”, but incredibly those outside of Bono’s egosphere saw it differently.

Screenshot from the Facebook video Q&A with U2

U got their album without asking, 2?

Apple infected users' iTunes with Bono's band

Software downloaded to your device without your permission is regarded as spam or worse and Songs of Innocence was seen no differently by U2 haters. Twitter was alight with fury and the internet with advice on how to remove the hated Irish music, with Apple publishing its own advice.

Bono, who with U2 is a familiar Apple ads front, hit the celeb retreat-mode button delivering a brand-new tune: a warbling apology, banging on about megalomania and self promotion. Apple insisted the stunt was a hit, claiming 81m “experienced” the album and 26m downloaded the thing in its entirety.

U2 weren’t the only Apple PR blowhards on hand to puff its latest phone. Occasional tech guru and career spokesperson Stephen Fry beat lines of adoring press to proclaim Apple’s latest phone “the most exquisite mobile ever made.” Fry, however, also seemed think Apple had “all but three per cent of the personal computer market.”

But as if that weren’t embarrassing enough, it transpired that this superlative device had been made so super thin by the Angels of Cupertino that it bent if it interfaced with the cheek of your bottom rather than the cheek of your face. Thus was born Bendgate. Apple reckoned instances of the banana prone phone had been overstated while hardware maker Foxconn said it was all nothing more than nasty rivals spreading malicious innuendo about the fruity firms lovely phone.

Microsoft’s long wanted to be like Apple and for a brief period in October it was - just not in an enjoyable way. A few ill-chosen comments by Sataya Nadella abruptly ended the new Microsoft’s chief exec’s honeymoon period in office. Wrapping up a Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Event, Nadella was asked his advice for women seeking a pay rise. His advice? Do nothing just rely on that thing women do so well. What was that, exactly? He wasn’t clear, but above all they should rely on their “super powers.”

Satya Nadella

Girl power!

Nadella later manned Twitter, the preferred medium of its PR chief, to spaff on further about gender pay gaps but it was too late and the damage was done. Chastened, he pledged a series of initiatives making sure women get equal pay at Microsoft and to generally close the gender gap. Thereafter Microsoft’s tweeting PR chief had his boss put on a very tight lead and on a much-hyped company event in London, Nadella used the magic of his words to put his audience to sleep.

Captain Ellison demotes self to boiler room

Silicon Valley’s longest serving CEO suddenly stepped aside this year. Larry Ellison had been running the world’s largest database maker since 1977, but suddenly on 18 October, the company said Ellison would be chief technology officer with his deputies Safra Catz and Mark Hurd taking over as CEOs. This being Oracle, the reason was provided on a need to know basis and you didn’t need to know.

Ellison is one of the world’s richest men and best compensated business chiefs - a man with a net worth that even the once-unwanted kid from Brooklyn struggles to comprehend. His firm rose from database player to dog: half of the RRBMS market is Oracle. The other 50 per cent is IBM, Microsoft and everybody else.

But recent years have been unkind on both Oracle and Ellison. He laughed off cloud computing, missing out on a huge potential opportunity, while sales of Oracle software failed to regain the highs of the pre-2008 bust glory days. He stepped aside on a third-success quarterly miss - Oracle’s fourth out of the last five. Hardware has been a millstone, too, as the Sun server and systems business he bought in 2010 has dragged down Oracle, going down with overall market server sales.

Ellison had had his famously fantastic compensation package cut by more than half on the back of Oracle’s lack luster performance. But that, apparently, wasn’t enough.

Larry Ellison

Ellison: new job, new package in 2014,

but just not in a good way

If we were being charitable, we’d suggest Ellison was retiring himself: aged 70, he’s three years past the official US retirement threshold with no successor.

But don’t think Ellison is out in the cold. He remains Oracle’s single largest shareholder and has a place on the board. Whether, and how, the database king returns will depend on his personal plans and how Oracle performs under Catz and Hurd.

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