John Lamb's Week: Dot-com suits shun May Day demos

The systems are intended for ecommerce applications in medium-sized companies. IBM explained somewhat pessimistically last week that the systems will help customers reduce complexity in their ebusiness infrastructures and significantly cut costs in a rapidly declining economic environment.

In more memorable fashion, the company also maintained the model is the only mid-market server capable of providing 'adult supervision' to costly, hard-to-manage Windows server farms.

Sometimes it seems as though if you blink you'll miss another new technology. That's how it feels with digital radio. Apparently the UK leads the way in applications for data services delivered by digital radio broadcasters.

And plucky British company RadioScape will be talking about its contribution to this emerging market on Monday. RadioScape has developed a test receiver that allows broadcasters to monitor their transmissions and detect any problems.

"Our product will increase the viability and quality of these services, enabling broadcasters to offer high-value, subscription-based data products at low costs," confides Phil Comelio, head of development at RadioScape.

Tuesday 1 May will once again see the anti-capitalists out on London's streets protesting against globalisation. Like the first cuckoo, the demonstrations are a reminder that spring is well and truly here. However, some members of the new economy are taking the annual business-bashing beano rather more seriously.

At least one company, meeting in central London, has issued attendees with instructions not to wear suits in case they become a target for protestors. Surely, ecommerce outfits gave up wearing pinstripes years ago?

Services firm Logica will also be demonstrating globalisation in action on the same day in London at IBC's i-mode conference. The company will be putting i-mode, the Japanese rival to WAP, through its paces. In what Logica believes is the first live demonstration of HTML over circuit switched data (CSD) and GPRS networks in Europe, the company promises to demonstrate mobile internet browsing and animation ahead of anything seen so far outside Japan.

"Logica will be able to show European operators the kind of access that millions of Japanese subscribers have been enjoying for some while - including colour screens and live access to Japanese sites designed for i-mode," says Gerry McKenna, COO of Logica Mobile Networks.

Talking about subscribers, Tuesday is also the deadline for a novel fundraising exercise launched by the Netimperative online news service. The City-based outfit had appealed to its users to cough up £50 each to keep the dot-com afloat. On Friday the number who had responded to the Save Our Service campaign had topped the 500 mark, but was still short of the 1,000 target the company had set itself.

Duncan Lewis, president and COO of broadband services company GTS Ebone, will be hosting what he calls a no-holds barred pre-briefing on Wednesday ahead of his keynote speech to the telecommunications industry at the grandly titled Capacity Wholesale Market conference and co-location summit.

Top of his agenda will be a call to arms challenging European governments for failing to implement legislation that would unlock local broadband access. Quite.

Finally, Apple buffs among silicon.com's readers will be on tenterhooks about new laptops that may well be announced this week. Steve Jobs, who usually likes to unwrap new products in front of the fans who attend Macworld events, is breaking with tradition by taking a more low-key approach. Can he be learning from all those big production announcements so regularly followed by missed delivery deadlines?