I was in the pub after work with a friend, who worked for IBM. His boss walked in and he tried to sneak out the back door, so that he wouldn’t be seen!

IBM, as a corporate culture were (sounds as if they still are), a bit like a religious cult. The indoctrination, the pin striped suits…

I don’t know how “bad” it is now, but from an outsider’s perspective, having friends who worked at IBM, it seemed rather scary in the early-to-mid 90s.

On one training course, the aircon broke and the lecturer said, because the temperatures were up in the high 30s, we could dress casual the next day. Most turned up in shorts and t-shirts, the IBM guys were still in suits and were heard, at break time, saying how disgraceful it was that the other people were wearing t-shirts!

Still, maybe IBM should count their chickens, if he had worked in Germany, they would, allegedly, have to pay his full salary for the 1 year non-compete, if they wanted to hold him to it…

But I’m still trying to work it out… Server division, media player division… Direct competition… That should make one heck of a power and heat saving, if we can throw out the blade servers for iPods – could also save a fortune in UPS systems as well