Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Friday 3/2/2006

Apologies are due to PRs and friends, and PRs who are friends, over my reluctance to answer phones and emails this week. I'm off to 3GSM in Barcelona the week after next — the mobile phone world's annual megabash — and made the mistake of registering as press nice and early.

This has resulted in close to a hundred emails and voicemails to date asking me to meet up with this CEO, that marketing manager and the other leading representative of a leading company leading in its field of leadership. Most of those turned up this week, and we've got a week to go before I even step on the plane. If I did nothing else but organise and attend meetings, I'd still be in Spain by the time los aires frescos del otoño blow in from the sea.

There are exceptions. People with intriguing technology get my attention – and that's unlikely to include billing middleware, sorry. I'm there as a guest of O2, who will certainly qualify under the 'dance with the one that brought you' rule, although that also means I'll be talking to their direct competitors under the 'gotta keep this balanced' rule – which also means you get much better stories, of course. Asking rivals what's wrong with a company is frequently enlightening and always amusing, if occasionally unprintable.

And much as it pains me, I'm going to have to say no to Intrinsyc Software. It led off its email with the undeniably attractive proposition to "meet with Randy Kath", who turns out not to be a home video star from Newcastle as one might reasonably hope, but from Vancouver, where a Randy Kath can be a bloke in a suit who knows about Windows CE. Other members of the board include messers Spratt, DuGuay and McQueen — why they settled on such a boring company name when there are so many fantastic combinations of surnames available, escapes me.

So — apologies in advance to everyone, especially those who weren't trying to talk to me about 3GSM after all. That includes James, PR for wireless mavericks xG Technology, who wanted very badly to tell you all that xG has appointed Credit Suisse in some sort of bankery capacity, that they've got video going and that super fast stuff is happening over the air. No, no products yet, nor the big deals that have been whispered.

Next week will be worse. Meanwhile, tune those radios to 145.990 MHz and listen for the bleeps — the International Space Station has chucked an old suit out of the airlock and wired it to broadcast its demise to the world as it gently spirals into a fiery fate below. A fitting memorial for the Marconi name.