The weekly Round-Up: 08.07.04

Microsoft's dancing CEO Steve Ballmer is trying to 'fight the flab'. But rather than going all low-carb and attending 'bums and tums' down the local leisure centre we're talking here about shedding a few pounds from the corporate expenditure.

Ballmer this week emailed Microsoft staff to outline a number of changes within the company as well as more general points about product lines, marketing developments and a need for everybody within the company just to 'pull their socks up' a bit.

Of most interest to the Round-Up were the sections dedicated to making cost-savings. Among the perks being axed are fizzy drinks and prescription drugs... (which sounds like the makings of a 14-year-old's birthday party).

The software giant is set to axe its free drinks machines and instead it is thought it may be encouraging sweet-toothed staff to drink water from water coolers. A staff discount on prescription drugs will also be reined in.

You can see it now. "But my Temazepam is the only thing which gets me through the Redmond day... well, that and the free cola..."

D'oh!

This email (or should that read 'novel'?) from Big Steve weighed in at around 4,000-plus words.

Now, assuming a 4,000 word email takes around five hours to write (the Round-Up speaks from experience here) and about 30 minutes to read and fully understand we can then have fun with some interesting sums.

For example, if Bill Gates read that email, based on some crude arithmetic and a rudimentary understanding of what Gates is worth and what he earns we can perhaps assume reading that email alone cost Gates around $114,000 of his ever-rising fortune.

Based on annual revenue, during that half hour Microsoft will have turned over $1.8m.

Then there is the far more sizable chunk out of Ballmer's working day taken to write - ok, dictate... or possibly just sign off – the email. Not to mention in excess of 55,000 employees who received the missive.

Now, let's kid ourselves and pretend they all thought "cool, an email from Mr Ballmer, I must read that" at an average hourly wage of $32, working an eight-hour day, then the company is picking up a bill of $2.64m in order for its staff to read that email.

How much cola were these people drinking?

Way to go Steve-O. The Round-Up salutes your thinking (presuming you were). (Read this for more.)

As cost-cutting measures go it is right up there with the Round-Up's all time favourite: when Cisco CEO John Chambers asked all staff to come in to work wearing shorts, in order that the air conditioning could be turned off. (Don’t believe us, then check this out and see for yourself.)

Speaking of people 'in short trousers', word reached the Round-Up this week of a particularly childish – but rather excellent – case of point-scoring.

One reader has found a way to make even one of life's less enjoyable moments raise a smile.

Nobody enjoys receiving a phone bill at the best of times but now there is a way to actually make the arrival of your phone bill one of the highlights of your month – simply through the application of a little mischief and a good grasp of cheap laughs.

"I recently logged on to the BT website to check my phone bill," began an email which the Round-Up inexplicably continued to read.

(Let's face it, as first lines go it doesn't really sell itself. It's hardly "When I was touring with Elvis in Vegas these 12 groupies burst into the Winnebago wearing nothing but hotpants and rollerskates..." But the Round-Up digresses...)

Thankfully, the story soon redeemed itself.

"On the site it asked how I would like to be addressed so I entered 'Long suffering customer' and sure enough the very next correspondence I received from BT began 'Dear Long Suffering Customer...'"

Hats off to you dear reader – you are an example to us all. (An example of how to be VERY childish. But whoever said that was a bad thing?)

Hopefully such comments from disgruntled customers may light a fire under BT. But hopeful in not quite the same way as that experienced by one unfortunate teenager in the US.

The 16-year-old girl from California was recently helping out at a youth centre when witnesses claim they heard a 'whooshing' noise – followed by the sight of the girl's backside catching alight.

A standard prank among rugby types, you say? Yes but this was no flaming flatulence gag - the source of the girl's flames was her mobile phone which had combusted in her pocket.

The girl was rushed to Chino Valley Medical Centre (where presumably everybody wears beige trousers – so, much like an IT conference then) and was treated for second degree burns to her backside.

According to reports the phone involved was provided by Verizon. It's unclear how it could have happened but hopefully the company will get to the bottom of it quickly. In the meantime the Round-Up just hopes the poor girl's anus horribilus isn't made any worse by her becoming the butt of any cheap wise-ass remarks or cheeky cracks.

Now that, that really would be a bum deal.

The unfortunate girl now joins King Alfred the Great on a very short list of people made famous for burning their buns. (Read this for more.)

Speaking of mobile phones being a pain in the arse, the Round-Up was dismayed to be the victim of a mobile phone theft on Tuesday night. Worse still – especially for somebody who should know better – there was no SIM card back-up and no insurance in place for such an eventuality. (Please feel free to learn from the Round-Up's experience - the Round-Up certainly has - rather belatedly.)

Since then the endlessly frustrating task of getting hold of all those numbers – not to mention a new handset and SIM card - has been a feature of the week. On which note special mention should be made of the staff member in the O2 shop up the road from Silicon Towers in the City who took uninformed unhelpfulness to a new level. His attempts to foist the most expensive handsets upon the Round-Up were particularly unwelcome, as were his attempts to lie about the company responsible for manufacturing O2's own-brand handsets.

(Furthermore, why would O2 sell certain models of mobile phones when their staff are so quick to dismiss them as "not very good phones" or "unreliable", before recommending any handset at least £100 more expensive? For the record the Round-Up once again opted for an "unreliable" and "not very good" Motorola, because they are excellent phones and despite a tendency to be losable – not to mention desirable to thieves - the Round-Up rates them very highly. To compensate for the above criticism the Round-Up must say the O2 call centres were excellent - perhaps not ALL UK call centres are rubbish after all... join in the debate here)

A third dose of mobile phone-related hurt this week comes all the way from Malaysia where a couple entered an SMS-based competition to win a $45,000 car. In total the couple sent 29,505 text messages (why not 29,500 or 29,506 you may ask? The Round-Up hasn't a clue...), believing the prize would simply go to whoever sent the most messages (...because that's how competitions normally work??). As such they apparently were unconcerned about spending the equivalent of one year's wages on entering the competition - confident their thumbs would triumph over other texters (...who perhaps had less tragically unfulfilled lives).

However, when Wong Jee Wai and her boyfriend Siew Kam Hong were told they had only scooped third prize – a motorbike worth a fraction of what they had spent on texts - the enraged couple hit the roof and threatened legal action against the organisers. However, the claim was thrown out by a tribunal which ruled the couple should have been more astute about reading the small print - which sounds like legalise for 'don’t be so stupid next time'.

And finally, HRH The Queen this week was honoured at Buckingham Palace with a visit from none-other than silicon.com columnist René Carayol.

René was there to collect his well deserved MBE for services to the IT industry.

And any concerns the former IT director and rising media star may have had about the lofty company in which he found himself were quickly dispelled when the Queen asked: "Haven't I see you on television?" However, Carayol was unable to confirm whether Her Majesty was also familiar with his work on the pages of silicon.com (though she apparently "absolutely loves" the Round-Up... maybe).

Carayol described the monarch as "smiling, accessible and friendly - a really good egg", but said his only regret from an otherwise "interesting day" out was the fact there were so few other business leaders there.

"It strikes me as a real missed opportunity not to create more 'business icons'. Publicly rewarding more people for their hard work in the IT industry would be a great way of encouraging more kids to think about careers in IT," he said.

We couldn't agree more (said the Round-Up dusting off his best suit and checking which buses run to Buckingham Palace). So we want your nominations for top gongs and who in the industry deserves one. Email editorial@silicon.com with your suggestions and explanations and we'll promise to pass on the best ones to Liz II next time we see her.

Until next week the Round-Up is off to practice bowing and scraping (hint, hint ma'am).

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