Gossip

Sean Maloney experiments with bi-location - or "how not to organise an intimate breakfast for 40 hacks"- by Intel

Someone at Intel will be fighting to keep their job, after a "brilliant innovation" in press relations at 3GSM this morning. It involved bringing Intel executive VP Sean Maloney into a small, intimate gathering of journalists and letting them ask questions.

Here we have the scoop: a live transcript:

Q: [inaudible] 
Sean Maloney: ....flash ... be huge... have 6 megapixel camera
Q: [inaudible] 
SM: ......bandwidth.
Q: You were clearly disappointed in the way you started in phones.
SM: [inaudible]
Q: But if you went back to two years ago?
SM: I don't want to look back.
Q: When will you ship [inaudible]?
SM: We have early versions of chips, customers are trying... testing... implementations
Q: but when?
SM : third quarter feels how it's going. I'm not seeing any indications [inaudible] right now that that's not going to happen ... 16e will be 18 months behind it. IEEE is finalising specification
Q: [inaudible] handsets?
SM: Always said [inaudible]  and I [inaudible] think that's still feels about right.
Q: [inaudible] 2004 backwards?
SM: [energetically] There's going to be a compatibility story. Think [inaudible] DSL deployment for the last few years.  Various DSL's
aren't going to be able to communicate. This will be for broadband to your
home. I don't think it's a big issue. [inaudible] to be resolved.
Q: are you eventually... some silicon manufactures... but they might not..
SM: You mean GPS? mature, very functional [inaudible. number [inaudible]

No, I'm afraid this isn't just down to your Sniffer going deaf. It's because there were 40 hacks in the room, all talking.

Why? Why weren't they listening to Sean Maloney?

Sean is a lovely guy. He's also executive vice president and general manager of the Intel Communications Group, and there were lots of questions that a lot of journalists wanted to ask, about things like XScale, like WiMAX, and about standards. The trouble is, there are more journalists than there are Maloneys. So some clever exec said: "I know what! We'll have four tables, and let Sean have a seat at each table!"

Four tables, one Sean. Still doesn't work. So they did it serially. Sean sat down at Table One, and chatted to ten hacks. All the other hacks at tables two, three and four, started chatting to each other while they ate their bacon and eggs. Nobody could hear a thing. Then Maloney moved to table two, and started again. Nobody could hear a thing.

So several people left. Panic broke out. Tables three and four were amalgamated. There wasn't room. (The Boss was given a seat behind Maloney, who consequently ignored all his attempts to ask questions). A notebook was dropped. A journalist became agitated about a high-speed camera taking continuous pictures at his ear.

The Boss left in a huff.

Your Sniffer didn't hear what he said to the Intel PR staff on the way out, but they didn't look at if he'd been praising them for the opportunity to chat with Maloney. But hey! here's a message for Sean himself: "John Lettice sends his love."

I'm sure The Boss would have passed the message on if he'd had a chance to say hello.