Day 3
Coming where I come from I generally bridle badly at the generalisations that are foisted upon people from my home town, especially by those from my adopted home who should know better. If I’m a congenital criminal then they are cock-suckers. Know worra mean like?

However being a journo means that the normal rules of hypocrisy do not apply so let’s start with some great generalisation s of my own regarding corporate Americans.

Just in case the CIA, NSA or whoever is monitoring this (please I need the affirmation.. ) let me state for the record that I like America; I’ve always liked working there and trips there even to weird places in Alabama; I fact I’ve had a great time so far this week meeting and drinking with Americans who I think are really cool. What I’ve never like are the alumni of the school that they send corporate spokespeople to. They churn out media Borg who o things like organising power breakfast

08:00
Breakfast meeting with MobiTV. Yes power brekies. Why? Why?

Here’s’ what tends to happen at power brekkies
1. They are generally the good idea of a US media Borg as it offers them an early chance to show off to their senior execs. This works in the US where journos are more respectful, indeed not contemptuous, to the vendors. IN Europe the first reaction is that the bastards have got me out of bed early so it had better be good. It invariably isn’t.
2. The breakfast is full of the greedy and the conceited – journos in short. If it’s not nailed down it’s devoured and there’s always that wonderful moment when a prize wanker complains about the toast not being brown enough or the eggs not being over easy enough.
3. Huge amount of time is spent by the client talking about itself. That’s not why we’re here.

Today’s event is run by MobiTV and ends up being good in spite of following the three steps above. Loads of US press at eh event – why are they here??? What can Europe tell them that they don’t know in the US? Who’s bothered if they’re here or not? This is a bad sign – means loads of questions mainly used to tell people how clever they are. (Generalisations see?). Event held in restaurant up Montjuic away from site – taxi driver gets lost and complains. At least I get to talk some Spanish. Stunning views of city early in morning. I could live here (again…)

First guy speaking nearly kills event stone dead with excruciatingly unfunny anecdote about Europe and London (we’re in Barcelona mate…) before sickening sycophantic description of CEO who turns out to be great value and says some great things about the industry and where he thinks things are headed. Knows his stuff and doesn’t come across like a game show host or geek. Leave at beginning of Q&A.

Interestingly room is revolving so people get see the view of city from windows. Does not make for easy viewing of presentation from static point

10:00
First meeting on site with Israeli chipset firm Siano. Generalisation 2: I like Israeli start ups – well 2 years in its case. They are usually run by hyper intelligent ex-pilots who have a real smart idea and make a shit load by selling the tech to a tier 1 company. These may be no exception. Chipset really clever piece of work and getting in end products for DVB H channels in Italy. Biggest competitor is my sponsor but that doesn’t bother me. This is good stuff and some time real soon a Samsung or LG will take them on an dace them mega bucks

11:00
Toshiba meeting. Don’t tell them about what laptop I have but low keyish demo of new actually impressive mobile business products which will be out in the UK in March. They grasp the nettle of security as well. And they have a channel for both IT and comms products. One to watch

11:30
UDcast. Payroll meting on mtv enabling tech supplier. Good interview with CTO.
12:00
Segue straight into meeting and lunch (hurrah!) with Danish start up Zyb who let you back up contacts and mail nos on the road. Good bloke with a great simple idea that the ops didn’t see or didn’t bother to execute. SMEs will love this whence it comes to UK. Fair play to him for making it work and hope second wave of VC works out. Danish as well so great sense of humour and rounded human being. Nice lunch as well. Same PR as UDCast – smart cookie. And, may I say American. See? You can employ good people who are not Borg

1:00
Catch IDC debate eon future of industry. This is a roundtable but being an analyst one rather than a tech vendors’ one (see yesterdays post) this one of better organised and has people with something to say and things you’d want to hear. Such as? Well basically there’s going to be a huge bun fight between the 3G ops and those offering WiMAX. Nightmare scenario for former is if latter price the services too low so that no one bothers with 3G data services. Been apparent for some years that one and panellist advocate regulators pricing up for parity. Businesses in UK won’t stand for that. Not my problem that the ops were silly enough to bid billions based on bollocks. WiMAX products will be out some time next year and I believe that businesses will take to it.