World of sport - and commercial opportunities for vendors

The worlds of the IT vendor and sport often intersect. Ask yourself, how many major teams these days don't have technology sponsors of one type or another? How often is a scoreboard supposedly provided by a Cisco, an IBM or a Motorola?

That's the superficial side. Putting a name to a successful sporting brand has many commercial benefits, and if silicon.com were for advertising and marketing executives we would discuss them here.

But let's consider the technology. This week we interviewed Bob Cottam, the Brit working for integrator SchlumbergerSema in Salt Lake City with the task of making sure the current Winter Olympics don't suffer some kind of meltdown because of IT and communications failures.

His comments were fascinating. Here's a project which can't be moved (remember Y2K?) and requires the infrastructure of a large enterprise - 145 Unix servers, 14,200 desktops and over 10,000 cellphones, just at the tip of the iceberg - but only for a couple of weeks. (See http://www.silicon.com/a51420 )

A lot can be learned from such a project, one where the whole world is watching. Cottam's advice to "test, test and test some more, and when you think you have done enough do more" comes to mind, even if it isn't the sexiest thing to say.

His comments about generating a team spirit, across multiple suppliers, are all also instructive.

It seems there is value in these sorts of relationships but we'd argue it's more for the interested user community rather than the companies who have forked out millions in sponsorship or graciously waived any of their usual - lofty - supplier fees.

As such, this summer silicon.com will be bringing you unparalleled coverage of how the World Cup is made possible by - and how it affects - IT and the internet.

Some of the main sponsors have wasted no time in demonstrating what they can do - national carriers like NTT and Korea Telecom, as well as players such as Toshiba and Yahoo.

We've also spoken to Avaya, the company charged with networking 20 stadia across Japan and South Korea, using voice over IP and ATM technologies for 15,000 journalists, broadcasters and security staff. One Avaya VP told us the World Cup would be "the biggest enterprise in the world - for a month".

Frankly, we can't wait to see how it goes. And if you have any angles or information about the systems or websites that will be involved, please post a Reader Comment below or email editorial@silicon.com .

You'll be hearing more.