The week in your words: Ofcom's Phorm filling

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 26 Sep 2008 at 18:35

In a week that saw Ofcom offer to do Phorm's dirty work, Dell sign the death warrant of IT consultants and Boris Johnson plotting to turn London into one giant Wi-Fi hotpsot, we take a look back to see what our readers have made of it all.

Ofcom to do Phorm's bidding?

How will Britain pay for its "super-fast" broadband network? There's more chance of Gordon Brown becoming a Bhudist and running off with Cherie Blair than there is of the Government stumping up the necessary £50bn, prompting Ofcom to come up with an idea so cunning, it could make it into the Blackadder Christmas Special.

Yes, our mighty regulator plans to put an extra few coppers in the meter by helping 'improve consumers' perception' of behavioural advertising services/join Phorm's PR department* (*delete as applicable).

The news went down like a Gary Glitter comeback tour with the good folk of the PC Pro forums.

"I seem to have missed something pretty big, when did Ofcom stop pretending to be a regulator (I use the term in the loosest possible sense of course!) and become an advertising agency?" asked hjlupton, brushing up his CV and sending his pin-stripe to the dry cleaners.

Meanwhile, Klobba was trying to do the staff of PC Pro out of a job. "In a news bulletin today, the regulatory body Ofcom stated that it is re-branding itself under the new name of Ophcorm in the hope that it will be better understood." We'll do the poor jokes, thanks matey.

Dell predicts demise of IT consultants

Who'd be an IT consultant? The over-demanding customers, the endless invoice chasing, the people who misheard you at a dinner party and ask you to take a look at the growth on their abdomen... it's not worth the hassle, surely?

Which is just as well, as Dell's hatching an evil plan to do away with them all and replace them with, well, Dell.

big_D's not hanging up his static straps just yet. "Having worked over 20 years as a consultant, I don't understand how diagnosing faults with a PC is going to impact my job?

"A consultant is there to offer advice and lay the groundwork for analysing the way current systems (computerised or manual) work and coming up with a more cost effective way of implementing them. What that has to do with keeping a PC running, I don't know."

Fellow Braveheart admered1, agrees there's nothing to worry about here. "I once asked a roomful of a customer's IT folks 'Do you want me to see how much software and systems support from Dell might be on this deal?' The response was a unanimous peel of laughter from all around the table," suggesting Peter Kay, not Dell, might have more to worry about if that's what passes for comedy.

david_i_stacey, on the other hand, is applying for the Private Fraser role in the remake of Dad's Army. "Anybody working in IT should now be looking over their shoulder if Dell gets its way," he says. "There are enough job worries in the market already without engineering our own demise."

Boris wants Wi-Fi for all

You're the new mayor of London, with the biggest budget of any single elected politician. What are you going to blow it on? Vintage whiskey and fat cigars for City Hall? Free rollerskates for the over-65s? Renaming Croydon 'Borisland'?