Articles about Pr Man
Bloody Dell! Is EMC going to drop its logo? Answers on a postcard to Brentford
Pics
Corrective brand surgery seems to be taking place at EMC’s London HQ already – it may be that Michael Dell is so keen to get his hands on the storage giant that he can’t wait for the ink to dry on the deal.
Following a tip-off about the changes taking place, El Reg in the UK braved the mean streets of Richmond and Kew to reach …
Lloyds Banking Group puts 640 techies and backroom bods on chopping block
Lloyds Banking Group is to chop 640 jobs in IT and back office functions as it forges ahead with plans to reduce its branch network's real estate.
Workers impacted by the planned redundancies are understood to be based in locations across the UK in London, Bristol, Manchester and Edinburgh.
A PR man at the company confirmed …
Microsoft cancels Remain speech after death of Labour MP
Exclusive
Microsoft invited a UK government cabinet minister from the Remain camp to give its troops the big sell on why Blighty should stay in the EU – but shelved the meeting following the murder of MP Jo Cox, the company confirmed.
The senior politician was to debrief the Windows giant's Brit workforce on the benefits of staying …
Black Monday: Office 365 down and out in Europe
The exact cause of today’s periodic Office 365 blackout remains a mystery some eight hours after the service in EMEA first fell over.
Poor unsuspecting souls took to Twitter this morning to vent their frustration at their lack of productivity caused by the cloudy productivity suite’s outage.
“We are experiencing a national …
Former tech PR Jeremy Hunt MP ordered by judge to delete tweet
The Secretary of State for Health (and former technology PR) Jeremy Hunt, got himself into a bit of bother with a judge after sending a tweet during the Frances Cappuccini manslaughter trial.
On the only the second day of the trial, Hunt had used the microbabble platform to link to a news report of the case, and commented that …
Capita: O2 call centre staff exodus is premature evacuation
Capita has “invited” O2 call centre staff with one eye on the exit to stick around for a little longer, and the resulting excitement at such a prospect is palpable.
Some 700 workers opted for voluntary redundancy last month, helping the outsourcing monster wring more profits from the £1.2bn, ten-year contract signed with O2 in …
Acer honourary chairman Shih would 'welcome' takeover bid
Stan Shih, the man who founded Acer and returned to rescue the business when it fell on hard times, would be receptive to a takeover bid but – despite its continued troubles – warned it won’t be sold on the cheap.
The Taiwanese PC-maker’s honorary chairman told local press that he would “welcome” such a move, as Reuters …
Take redundancy if you want, Capita IS for turning now, after all
Crapita is to shutter both the Bury and Glasgow call centres that provide phone support for O2 customers after hundreds of staff – all of those in scope – accepted voluntary redundancy, a union said.
This is a complete about-turn by the integrator-cum-outsourcing monster which even until a few weeks ago was telling us that no …
Roku 3: Probably the best streaming player on the market ... for now, at least
Review
Ok, so let's get this out the way quickly: this updated Roku 3 is the best streaming player on the market right now.
And it will most likely remain the best on the market until the Roku 4 arrives toward the end of the year. And yes, that includes the Apple TV fourth generation that everyone expects to be this 2015's pant- …
Thought your dept was on budget this year? THINK AGAIN, matey
Tech buyers will likely need to revisit budget forecasts at the month's end with another price hike on commodity hardware to be pushed through by vendors in response to the relative appreciation of the dollar.
Since last summer the US currency is up 15 per cent against the UK Pound (the impact on the Euro is even more pronounced …
EMC looks to military to swell ranks of sales and techie army
EMC is trying to close the skills gap by recruiting the next wave of sales and technical personnel from the armed forces, training steely eyed military leavers for a life on Civvy Street… well, flogging storage.
The corporation, in conjunction with specialist military support service X-Forces, is putting 20 people through their …
EMC parachutes EMEA bigwig into UK boss role
EMC has unloaded UK managing director responsibilities onto EMEA head Adrian McDonald on an interim basis following the defection of James Petter to flash adversary Pure Storage.
Earlier this week it emerged that Petter had opted to join the relative upstart as EMEA veep and replace Steven Rose, an industry veteran who was in …
IBM: Get yer cloud services! Analytics, mobile, ten a penny
With all bets placed behind software and services, IBM needs to quickly re-tune its route to customers to get the right suppliers on board and the revenue dial moving in the right direction again.
The grand lady of tech is challenged on multiple fronts; the System x volume hardware business is transferring to Lenovo along with …
Roll up for El Reg's 3G/4G MONOPOLY DATA PUB CRAWL
Special Report
In January I was in the pub with Richard, an old school friend I hadn’t seen for 30 years and whom I was keen to impress. Then he asked one of those seemingly simple questions. “Simon,” he said. “You’ll know which 4G network I should be on”.
Just 10 words but a whole heap of trouble. And like any good pub conversation, it led …
Fujitsu on hunt for UK directors after re-jig
Fujitsu is in headhunting mode to fill some senior positions in the UK following a revamp of the company structure, El Chan can reveal.
The local big boss Duncan Tate is moving to head up the EMEA and India regions but will continue to look after Blighty until a successor is found, the company confirmed.
"We still have the UK …
Cough up or else, HMRC tells storage channel biz
Surrey-based storage player Glasshouse Technologies has been slapped with a winding-up petition over unpaid debts from the tax bulldogs at HM Revenue and Customs.
HMRC used to issue these orders like they were going out of fashion because it was first in the queue as a preferential creditor if a business went under as a result …
Barclays warns freelance techies of DOUBLE DIGIT rate cut
Cost-cutting Barclays has incurred the wrath of all its contractors, including techies, by confirming plans to slash rates by ten per cent from next month.
This is the third cut to IT freelancers in as many years, say our sources, and comes as the business prepares to wave goodbye to up to 12,000 workers worldwide including 7, …
Acer writes off MEELLIONS again, scraps raw materials
Beleaguered PC maker Acer is back in the red again after scrapping millions of pounds worth of raw materials inventory as the first move to "dig" itself out of a deepening hole.
With a new broom on board - the latest CEO Jason Chen was plonked into the top job back in December - operating under the gaze of founder and returning …
Barclays says soz for titsup website, bank app
Barclays UK has spent this morning on Twitter apologising to customers frustrated by a crashed banking app and online outage that occurred over the past two consecutive days.
The bank turned a day of rest - for most of us anyway - into a stress-fest for its loyal punters who woke up on Sunday morning unable to use the mobile app …
Big customers need a personal servicing, says Big Blue grand fromage
Interview
IBM has handed the bulk of its largest corporate hardware customers to channel partners – some 200 accounts – but it is retaining 23 clients who will still get the touchy-feely treatment from its direct sales reps – who comprise half of the unit's sales.
So the crown jewels remain firmly nestled in the bosom of Big Blue, so to …
Is it TRUE what they say about the 'Moto G'? We FIND OUT on the 13th
Google-owned Motorola’s rumoured lower-cost alternative to the top-of-the-range Moto X looks set to arrive in time for Santa to drop it down a few of the world’s chimneys this year.
A suitably seasonal promotion card scanned and then posted on GSM Arena by a punter who claims to have found a batch about to be sent to Phones4u …
Distributing Microsoft gear in UK? You might not be for much longer
Microsoft has put out to tender its UK distribution contracts in a bid to ascertain if those already on board can be trusted to take the new services and device mantra to market.
Seven UK wholesalers were forced to submit responses to an "enormous" Request For Proposal by 10 October and will be sitting on their hands for a month …
EasyJet website crashes and burns
Barrel-scraping orange airline easyJet is apologising to customers over a "technical" error that has brought down its website worldwide, preventing punters from booking flights or checking in online.
The easyjet.com site has been down for several hours with the firm taking to Twitter to 'fess up to the unspecified gremlins …
Royal Mail FAIL as web brokerage Hargreaves Lansdown struggles with investor demand
Online share brokerage Hargreaves Lansdown is still struggling to cope with the massive spike in Royal Mail share dealing that brought down its trading portal this morning.
The company's Oracle-based infrastructure collapsed 45 minutes after trading began at 8am today, Tom McPhail, a spokesman at HL confirmed to El Reg.
"Demand …
Intermedia's Exchange hive goes titsup ... and no one's answering calls
Updated
Intermedia, the world's largest third-party provider of hosted Microsoft Exchange services, today delivered a masterclass in how to mismanage customers' expectations when cloud services crash.
Hordes of angry customers on both sides of the Atlantic took to Twitter this afternoon to complain about "issues" with the company's …
HP sacks English employees to bag Scots gov jobs cash
HP will axe workers in Sheffield and shunt their roles to Renfrewshire in Scotland to bag a £7m grant from the Scottish government, the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) trade union claims.
It's understood the multimillion-pound grant from the public purse is a reward for boosting local employment.
About a third of support …
Gov tech buyers told to buy from CloudStore first
The Cabinet Office has mandated procurement heads in central government to use the CloudStore first when splashing taxpayers' cash on tech in a bid to kill off old world buying habits.
And despite a faltering start to the G-Cloud programme*, just £1.25m was transacted under the first iteration and a total of £18.6m over the two …
Dell tried gobbling doomed Brit IT giant 2e2 for £350m, say insiders
Exclusive
Dell narrowly avoided buying Brit IT giant 2e2 before the integrator went titsup, say sources close to the £350m talks.
The negotiations collapsed after 2e2's venture-capital backers Duke Street Capital held out for more. Both sides met across the table a year ago, long before 2e2's UK operations nosedived into administration. A …
NHS IT bods 'walk out' in pay row with crashed UK tech giant 2e2
A number of contractors from collapsed UK tech giant 2e2 refused to turn up for work in NHS IT today after their January pay was withheld, it is claimed.
Debt-crippled 2e2 Group went into administration this week and put staff wages under "review", but its new handlers assured health service bosses that hospitals are a top …
Plans for special police-run ICT firm to firm up this month
Home Office Minister Theresa May is set to finally add some colour to the plans she sketched out last year over the creation of a police ICT company, the department has confirmed.
The way IT is procured and managed by the boys in blue was criticised by May last summer for being "confused, fragmented and expensive" and a firm, …
Pope's PR says Vatican in grip of WikiLeaks-style scandal
The Pope's top PR man has declared that the Vatican is in the midst of its own "WikiLeaks" scandal after a flurry of confidential Papal documents were fed to the media by apparently disgruntled cardinals.
The leaks have ranged from documents covering allegedly murky operations at the Vatican bank, to an investigation into a …
Resellers smack down Microsoft's 'single-digit' price rise claim
Microsoft says that a planned overhaul of volume licensing pricing due in the summer will be capped at single digit percentage rises.
Redmond said that Open, Select and Select Plus agreements struck in the UK after 1 July would be aligned to euro prices and charged based on the exchange rate with sterling.
"Based on the …
Microsoft skewers Google's anti-Android conspiracy claim
Updated
Microsoft has hit back at Google's claim that Redmond teamed with Apple and Oracle in some sort of patent conspiracy against Android, revealing that it offered Google the opportunity to join a bid for Novell's patent portfolio, and producing an email in which a Google general counsel declines the offer.
On Wednesday, Google …
Virgin Media begins 100Mb upgrades
Virgin Media today said it will begin increasing the maximum downstream broadband speed available via its network to 100Mbit/s, and maximum upload speed to 10Mbit/s.
The gradual programme will take more than 18 months to cover the country, it said, and is due for completion in mid-2012. The first areas scheduled for upgrade, in …
Zuckerberg advises UK.gov on using Facebook
The culture secretary Jeremy Hunt today met Facebook's main node Mark Zuckerberg.
The young CEO is in London for a developer conference, and took the opportunity to press the government to use Facebook more in its decision-making.
"Really smart guy with some good ideas on improvement [sic] digital engagement in policy making," …
Tories swallow Web 2.0, spit out £1m crowdsource prize
The Tories are waving a £1m taxpayer-funded crowdsourcing prize under the noses of developers to produce a website that can "harness the wisdom" of voters to "resolve difficult policy challenges".
According to shadow culture secretary and ex-tech PR man Jeremy Hunt, the prize money would be paid for out of Cabinet Office …
Google Spanner — instamatic redundancy for 10 million servers?
Google’s massively global infrastructure now employs a proprietary system that automatically moves and replicates loads between its mega data centers when traffic and hardware issues arise.
The distributed technology was first hinted at — in classically coy Google fashion — during a conference this summer, and Google fellow …
Tories would scrap 50p broadband tax
A Conservative government would scrap the planned 50 pence per month tax on every landline - which the current government plans to use to subsidise faster broadband in rural regions - "as soon as possible", according to the shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt.
The levy hasn't yet been implemented but is a cornerstone of the …
Google Caffeine: What it really is
As it invites the world to play in a mysterious sandbox it likes to call "Caffeine," Google is testing more than just a "next-generation" search infrastructure. It's testing at least a portion of a revamped software architecture that will likely underpin all of its online applications for years to come.
Speaking with The Reg, …
Phorm CEO clashes with Berners-Lee at Parliament
An exasperated Kent Ertugrul took on Sir Tim Berners-Lee in a tense encounter at a discussion on internet privacy at the Houses of Parliament today.
The Phorm CEO was in the audience at a packed event sponsored by the Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Miller and organised by the privacy activist website NoDPI.org.
Fellow peers, …
Kiwis go all black over copyright enforcement laws
Filesharers have deployed the ultimate weapon on the Antipodean front in their global copyright battle with the music and film industries: Twitter*.
New Zealand is on the verge of enacting laws to curb illegal filesharing. ISPs will be compelled to introduce policies that could lead to disconnection from the internet for repeat …
MS wields price cutlass at Chinese pirates
Microsoft has slashed the retail price of its Office 2007 suite in China by over 70 per cent for versions to counter widespread piracy in the country.
The software giant has cut the selling price for Office 2007 Home and Student Edition to 199 yuan ($29) from 699 yuan ($102) as a special promotional offer that kicked off on …
I saw aliens at Roswell, claims dead PR man
The public relations officer at the Roswell air base in 1947 has released claims that he saw a crashed spacecraft and the bodies of aliens at the site, despite a lifetime spent denying any such things.
In the affidavit, Lieutenant Walter Haut says the weather balloon was a cover story, and that the real crashed object had been …
Designing intelligent petitions too taxing for Brits
Letters
Tony Blair has his finger on the button and is preparing to fire. Fortunately, there are no weapons of mass destruction, only emails of mass dissemination, as New Labour preps a reply to the 1.5 million people who don't want road tax priced by the mile:
Re: Blair ready to spam Britain ...and what will happen to the No. 10 …
HP's 'ethics' chief emerges as spy scandal star
On September 6 - Carly Fiorina's birthday - investigators involved in the HP spy scandal could hear the butcher's footsteps. Quite a few people would be sacrificed because of the public relations mess, and those closest to the probe would likely be cut across the neck first.
"We are being hung out to dry, the politics, smokes …
Reg reader in exploding phone charger drama
An angry Register reader has told how his Sony Ericsson CST-20 charger exploded on Monday night, spraying the room with shrapnel. Swindon man Scott Wichall said the lid of the smoking unit flew across the kitchen, striking his three-year-old son Kieran square in the chest.
Kieran was “very scared” by the incident. Scott had …
The bizarre world of Patrick Byrne's Overstock
Analysis
The SCO Group and Senator Hatch aren't the only strange things you'll find in the beautiful state of Utah.
Take Overstock, whose CEO Patrick Byrne has held calls with financial analysts in which he delved into his sexuality and experiences with cocaine, in the midst of a tirade on how a cabal led by a "Sith Lord" was out to …
ICANN Blog: Fear and redemption
I’m in Luxembourg attending the 23rd ICANN conference in a big tin can in the sun.
I spoke to someone from the outside world last night and was surprised to find I’d only been here two days. After another day in the can, I may have to call them back to make sure it’s now only three.
How could I have written two blogs and not …
Pervert! You're using the Internet
Opinion
Guy Kewney is probably the UK's best-known computer journalist. He has his own site, our news partner, the marvellous Newswireless.Net.
Here's a small coincidence for you. Microsoft is going to charge users for mobile MSN mail, and is going (try to) to charge other Instant Messaging systems a royalty for access to MSN Instant …
WAPit's scrapped it
Updated
Top WAP portal and app developer WAPit has filed for bankruptcy after failing to get a second round of financing.
The Finnish company was set up in 1998 and was a main force behind open source WAP, gateways and middleware. Its products will live on in other products but WAPit itself and a range of talented staff are out the …
