Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Monday 28/8/2006

Perhaps it's because it's the August Bank Holiday, that last desperate breath of summer holiday, and perhaps it's because I'm up in Edinburgh, city of Burke and Hare, but matters of mortality today weigh me down.

In particular, I wonder, what on earth are companies like East Midland Computing and Intelligent Software Limited doing alongside the Batesville Casket Company and the British Institute for Embalmers at the National Funeral Exhibition? (15-17 June, 2007, Stoneleigh Park Exhibition and Conference Centre Warwickshire. Put it in your diary now.)

I poke around — of course, it's the most horizontal of the vertical markets. Funeral directors need IT too, hence the East Midland Computing package EMCOM ("The best funeral arrangement software ON EARTH" — illustrated with a tasteful picture of a hand sprinkling said substance — but marketing here is always going to be problematical).

But this suggests further and as yet uncharted realms of technical services to the recently deceased, ones that my Presbyterian Scottish other half immediately seizes on. Although the dear departed has gone beyond the reach of even Microsoft's licensing conditions, the repercussions of their passing may not be so easily laid to rest. For example, there may well be a computer to be handed on to a relative — now, what's on that computer? Do you want to know? What if it reveals more about Uncle Henry than ever got aired at the funeral?

It is thus, with all due respect for the grave nature of the subject, that I announce the formation of the Goodwins Thaumaturgical Data Team — "Bury your IT worries". You can choose between various levels of service, ranging from the "Quiet of the Grave" option — we forensically clean the hard disk and any other storage, reinstalling all operating system and applications software, good as new — to "Resurrection Day", which provides a complete analysis and retrieval of all data on the computer, carefully catalogued and with professional legal opinion attached, where appropriate.

Of course, we treat client information in the strictest confidence: only fully ordained priests are allowed to conduct the work, thus letting it fall into the category of confession and avoiding those embarrassing laws about disclosure of discovered irregularities to the authorities. After all, if Uncle Henry had half a million stashed away in a Paypal account thanks to his eBay activities with the company silver — well, that's up to you to handle, isn't it?

Well, that's my fortune made, and not a hint of Web 2.0. Who needs a bubble when you've got a body?