John Lamb's Week: Will Iceland get lift off from the tornado?

The organisers - Tornado Insider magazine - are determinedly upbeat with the theme '2001 The Critical Year - Onward and Upward'. Attendees will hear from investors such as Hermann Hauser of Amadeus and Max Burger-Calderon of Apax Partners as well as entrepreneurs such as Marc Lassus of Gemplus.

The name Tornado Insider is derived from Inside the Tornado, a book by Geoffrey Moore which details the spiralling effect experienced by companies attempting to grow from small niche players into mass market monoliths. Although conceived in more hopeful times, the turbulence metaphor still holds good for today's high-tech companies, even though the best that many can hope for it that they won't get dumped from the tornado.

On Tuesday Ron Zambonini, chief executive officer of business intelligence company Cognos will be unpacking his bags in a central London hotel. Zambonini, who has been five years in the hot seat, has recently been steering Cognos into the crowded waters of the corporate portal market. He will spend four days meeting customers and the media in the UK, including visits to top IT brass at the Shell oil company and HSBC bank.

A long time developer of business intelligence software, Cognos is attempting to move from being a supplier of technical tools for data mining and online analytical processing, into the more glamorous world of ebusiness. Its major competitor is the French based Business Objects, but significantly Zambonini will not be crossing the channel on this trip.

The cost of licences for third-generation wireless services may have added to BT's financial woes, but it hasn't put the company off pressing ahead with more conventional wireless technology. This Wednesday the telecom company will be unveiling a cordless phone and modem system called Talk and Surf based around the Digital Enhanced Cordless Technology (DECT) standard.

BT will bring out a £250 system consisting of a wireless modem that plugs into the back of a notebook or desktop system and a combined handset and answering machine that will act as a base station for the computer's modem. Users will be able to roam up to 300 yards.

Watch out on Wednesday for an announcement from BSkyB that it will be closing Open, its interactive home shopping channel. The channel, it seems, just hasn't attracted enough armchair bargain hunters to be profitable. The failure of Open raises questions about the viability of interactive television as a commercial medium. One school of thought has it that the text based, teletext-style pages pumped out by Open were just not appealing enough to BSkyB subscribers.

Media Logic, the Hampshire-based interactive television company, was quick to claim last week that satellite does not provide sufficient bandwidth to sell goods and services effectively. The company pointed out that its own interactive television offering iSeeTV runs on cable and works from a video-enabled call centre which allows home shoppers to have a 'real, live person' on their television screens to guide them through their purchases.

From time to time we get invitations at silicon.com to meet government-backed trade missions, but it is not often we get the call to hob nob with a real life president. This week, however, the president of Iceland (the country not the frozen food retailer) is in town to boost the island's software industry. Watch this space for our interview with the top man on efforts by the land of ice and fire to develop products for third-generation communications.