Can you remember what you were doing ten years ago this week? Were you sitting in a hot tub sipping champagne, surrounded by beautiful people? Were you kitting out your office with high end leather chairs, beer fridges and an expensive games room? Were you dreaming up a talking sock puppet mascot? Were you taking out an enormous mortgage? Were you hatching plans for a new dotcom launch that would make you a millionaire and enable all of the above?
It’s the first sign of spring. As the Informer parked his trusty penny farthing in the unusually busy cycle shed this morning, squeezing the sturdy relic of a bygone era in among the shiny carbon frames and razor thin wheels newly purchased by the fair weather cyclists, he was struck by how things change.
Even after the culinary tragedy that is Barcelona, there’s no break from the carbohydrates this week as AWIW picks up a distinctly Italian flavour. Local incumbent Telecom Italia made the extraordinary move of delaying its financial results for 2009, as its wholesale unit, Sparkle, came under the spotlight as authorities investigate a massive money laundering scheme.
Finally. It’s all over. Well, for another year at least. All we’re left with is the delayed flights, the aching legs, throbbing heads, indigestion (cheese and ham or ham and cheese?), and the vague sense of having been robbed (either physically, emotionally or cerebrally, depending on your luck).
The Informer’s been getting his head down early every night this week, in a pointless effort to bank some shuteye ahead of the five-day festival of sleep deprivation that is the 2010 Mobile World Congress, which begins on Monday. Actually, some firms are starting early, trying to entice the likes of the Informer to boozy parties on the Sunday night. Because, of course, it makes sense to embark on a four-day floor-pound at the Fira de Barcelona with a ripping hangover for company.
There can’t be many carrier CEOs who are likened to fathers by their staff. Saad Al Barrak, the talismanic managing director and deputy chairman of Middle East and African regional operator Zain, seems to be one of them, though. So there were some distraught Zainers out there this week as Al Barrak handed in his resignation. The move fuelled speculation on what analysts are calling a “divergence of vision” between Al Barrak as the company’s owners, Zain’s board of directors promptly accepted the notice, which will become effective on March 1.
Was it coincidence that Apple decided to launch its iPad just three days before the full moon? Certainly the name of the device has given rise to what might be described as a flow of unsavoury jokes, but the Informer was struck by something else altogether. Watching footage of Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiling the new device on YouTube this week, the Informer found himself thinking: “The man’s a billionaire. Can he not afford a belt?” Shirt tucked into jeans with no belt is a fashion no-no even the Informer can understand.
The Informer attended a glittering occasion at London’s Science Museum last night, held to celebrate 25 years of the UK cellular industry. He had a wonderful time, wandering around the museum looking at all the old relics, some of whom had some fascinating stories to tell.
In a week dominated by events as profoundly sobering as the Haitian earthquake and its aftermath, the news that the mobile industry will turn over more than $1 trillion for the first time in 2013 is given serious context. Aid agencies that are calling for donations in the stricken Caribbean nation report that £50 can buy a food parcel that will feed a displaced family for two weeks.
Never mind whether androids conjure electric sheep as they sleep, the Google-backed mobile phone platform has inspired some very big dreams indeed. Tech event CES always ensures the year starts off with a bang, drawing a big crowd. But the Informer finds Las Vegas no easier to stomach than its culinary equivalent (a big bowl of refined sugar with half a bottle of gin poured over it), which is the reason he’s holed up in snowy London watching the flurry of product announcements as they settle inches deep on the highways of the internet. That and the absence of a travel budget.
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