The Yearly Round-Up: 23.12.04

Merry Christmas to all you dear readers who are working up until Christmas Eve, or all the way through the festive season - rest assured the Round-Up is with you until the bitter end, to bring a little seasonal cheer to your inbox.

But given the special time of year, the Round-Up hopes you will forgive a change in format for a newsletter which will this time review the whole year, rather than merely the one week.

To quote another satirist of slightly higher acclaim: "I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little piece, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me."

Those words of Charles Dickens' introduced 'A Christmas Carol' - his tale of redemption at this festive time. But before redemption, of course, came inhumanity.

"What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer, a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you?" asked Scrooge.

Of course, Scrooge learned his lesson. So, the question the Round-Up poses is whether some of today's business leaders could benefit from some seasonal spiritual awakening.

Would a figure such as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer benefit from a visit or two from Dickens' spirits? Certainly the Ghost of Christmas Past might show him a thing or two...

"Greetings to you Steve Ballmer, I am the Ghost of Christmas past. Come with me and let me open your eyes."

With that Ballmer found himself standing in a familiar setting.

"Why, this is my good friend Mr Fezziwig's house... why have you brought me here kind spirit."

"Don't you recognise the young man in the centre of the room?"

"Of course I do, it's me... and I'm dancing."

"Indeed you were a jovial fellow once upon a time Steve Ballmer. And what is your friend Mr Fezziwig doing?"

"Why, he's making the most of a Christmas gift he has received."

"And what is that gift Steve Ballmer?"

"It's a new PC, shipped with our latest operating system pre-installed. Not to mention a large volume of bundled applications including the controversial Windows Media Player, which caused such a storm in Europe this year."

"And how is your friend Mr Fezziwig these days?"

"I haven't spoken to him for some years now... since I gave him that PC in fact."

"And how does he look to you in this vision. Does he look happy?"

"No, he looks quite sad."

"Steve Ballmer, that is because historically your operating systems and software such as Internet Explorer have shipped with a series of critical security flaws many of which were exploited by virus writers over the past 12 months. "

"Humbug! We made amends. We brought out Windows XP SP2 just this very year... albeit a little behind schedule."

"But that didn't resolve ALL of the problems did it Ballmer?"

"Again, humbug!"

And if the Ghost of Christmas Past proved an unwelcome visitor, it's unlikely the Ghost of Christmas Present was any more welcome. Or perhaps the Ghost of Christmas Presents would be a more fitting title...

A tall man, dressed in a black turtle neck sweater who was familiar in many ways to the terrified Ballmer stood before him at the end of his bed.

"I recognise you... you're Steve Jobs," muttered Ballmer.

"And I am the ghost of Christmas Presents. Not to mention number 2 on silicon.com's Agenda Setters 2004 list, may I add."

"But I digress. Come with me," said the ghost beckoning Ballmer forwards.

With that Ballmer once again found himself away from the confines of his property and transported this time to an unfamiliar place.

"Where are we?"

"Why, this is the home of your employee Bob Cratchitt."

"And who is that small boy?"

"That is his son, Tiny Tim."

"The boy appears to be ailing. What troubles him?"

"He wants an iPod mini for Christmas... but at £179 - which I think is more than reasonable - he fears his father will be unable to buy the 'must-have item of 2004' for him. Of course if his father had any sense he would have bought an iPod mini when you sent him on a US business trip - like so many other esteemed consumers from the UK who got in there early and smuggled hundreds of the devices into the country."

"An iPod? I say a humbug!" retorted Ballmer. "iPods are nothing but sanctuary for the stolen goods of these wretches who should be in prison."

"Are you saying again that 'iPod users are music thieves'? Careful Steve Ballmer, you surely remember - or maybe you don't - what trouble such comments landed you in earlier this very year."

"Bah! Why can other people be nasty about me and my company but if I hit out at them we get called every name under the sun?"

Other visits in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Present may include a trip to the home of the many McAfee execs who may be feeling the pinch a little this year after losing the lucrative MSN Hotmail contract to rival Trend Micro.

But surely Microsoft didn't whip away the contract because the AV firm refused to enter into takeover talks earlier this year? Did they?

The Ghost of Christmas Present would also have enjoyed reminding Ballmer that this Christmas will see Microsoft around $500m worse off after the EU upheld its ruling this week on the antitrust case. And as for the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (who really should have worked on a better name), he will be able to show Ballmer a Microsoft forced to sell operating systems without Media Player bundled as standard as a result of that ruling.

So would we really see a happy ending to this Christmas Carol?

"What's today?'' cried Ballmer, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

"Eh?" returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.

"What's today, my fine fellow?'' said Ballmer.

"Today?" replied the boy. "Why, Christmas Day."

"It's Christmas Day!'' said Ballmer to himself. "I haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night."

"Hallo!'' returned the boy

"Do you know the UK's first Apple Store? In Regent Street, at the corner?'' Ballmer inquired.

"I should hope I did,'' replied the lad who like thousands of people had already visited the store to see the Genius bar, record-breaking shop floor and raft of super-cool gadgets.

"An intelligent boy!'' said Ballmer. "A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they've sold the gold iPod mini that was hanging up there?"

...And so it came to pass that Tiny Tim received his mini iPod.

"God bless us every one!"

It does seem a little unlikely. At this rate though it's likely Ballmer will be one of the few people not to own Apple's all-conquering MP3 player - the mini version of which was undoubtedly the success story of the year.

Although they do have a nasty habit of breaking down in "isolated" incidents (all three of the units owned by silicon.com staffers became unusable within six months) the devices whipped up feverish support throughout the year from Mac fanatics, devotees and converts alike - many of whom may still be surprised to hear Apple also makes computers... "oh yes they do!" - if you'll allow the Round-Up to introduce a little pantomime parlance into proceedings, as is customary at this time of year.

And certainly some of the stranger twists and turns in the year's news wouldn't have been out of place on the stage.

Some humour may be derived from the UK government's widely criticised attempts to introduce biometric ID cards which drew even more fire this year. Even if some believe the threat to civil liberties far outweighs the funnies.

Due to recent events the scheme's biggest supporter, shamed former Home Secretary David Blunkett, won't be as hands-on as he'd hoped when the controversial scheme finally comes into effect.

And Blunkett may be wondering where all this has left his career.

In true panto style, the Round-Up reckons "it's behind you!" David.

And much like the Muppets' own Stadler and Waldorf any staged performance needs a couple of hecklers present to spoil it for everybody and the Round-Up nominates US politicians Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley who ruined everybody's fun this year with their eponymous regulatory legislation.

Not so much a pantomime, more a farce, the Oracle PeopleSoft deal finally, finally - thank god! - finally - came to a close last week after far too many column inches had been devoted to the tiresome long-running saga.

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison started the year by sealing a deal of another kind when he married his fourth wife, romance novelist Melanie Craft (see the lady herself here - what's he got that the Round-Up hasn't, eh?).

At the time silicon.com was accused of casting unkind aspersions on the happy couple's nuptials (would we!?) - drawing criticism from none-other than Craft herself.

After some bridge building, Craft - who was actually incredibly good-humoured about the whole thing - set a punishment for the silicon.com reporter concerned.

His act of contrition - to read Craft's latest romance novel Man Trouble - in public, on his commute into town each morning, cover to cover.

A hard but fair woman we thought.

And of course that wasn't the only quirky little gem uncovered by the silicon.com news team over the course of 2004.

It's hard to list our favourites but there are a few which are well worth another airing.

All the way back at the start of the year there was the strange tale of the man who was told he was 'too fat to eat at Burger King' after some rather unkind hackers took control of the intercom at his local drive-thru.

The Round-Up thinks that's a tad harsh - he was only trying to order a couple of Whoppers for his lunch - the cornerstone of any nutritious diet.

Another story which proved popular with readers was the 'peeping Tom' camera which enabled users to see through the flimsy materials of bikinis.

For the record, that wasn't why it was designed but, like all accidental inventions, give it some time and nobody will remember the real reason it came to be.

And then there was the voicemail message which rocked cable giant NTL in September.

Some enterprising miscreant/disgruntled employee changed the standard answer phone greeting to something far less on-message.

The message began: "Hello. You are through to NTL customer services."

Which was a good start. But - and isn't there always a but - it continued:

"We don't give a f*ck about you. We are never here. We will f*ck you about, basically, and we are not going to handle any of your complaints. Just f*ck off and leave us alone. Get a life."

Oh dear.

And on that bombshell the Round-Up is going to take its leave for another year. All that's left to say is to wish you all a wonderful Christmas.

We value every one of our readers and wish you a superb Christmas and we hope you return to us healthy and happy for a prosperous New Year.