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By Tony Hallett, 5 March 2007 15:09

COMMENT

Bit of a round-up this morning. Lots has been going on. Let me start with two things close to our heart - our annual CIO Forum event in the autumn and our Fair Wi-fi campaign.

I mention these in the same breath because we are currently trying to finalise our venue for this year's CIO Forum event - due to take place in October (a change from the usual September) - but we also have a campaign calling on hotels to charge fairly (not necessarily free of charge) for the provision of wi-fi wireless internet services. See where I'm going here?

How could we invite people to our biggest annual event and select a venue that expects attendees to pay an arm and a leg for wi-fi access? The answer is simple - we can't - and that's why some London hotels have been struck off our shortlist and are missing out on around £20,000 of business as a result. We are still looking at some hotels that charge for wi-fi - as so many do - but we will strive to ensure this remains an important criteria in our selection process.

So, to skip to the chase, expect us to use a wi-fi friendly venue. And expect us to name and shame some of the worst hotels for bleeding dry conference attendees.

Here's a taster: one that found canny guests were buying a connection (for no small amount) and then letting others piggy-back off that single PC, has found a way to charge by every additional connection/laptop. I'm not sure how they do that. But they sounded pretty pleased with themselves when our events organiser called them up.

So I think we should name and shame the hotel chain and its penny-pinching ways. That extra £25 per connection probably won't cover the lost business. Watch this space.

In other news, I had a good catch up with BT last Friday. There is always interesting news coming out of that company, whether to do with customer service generally and all that entails, broadband or a growing global reach, especially in areas around IT services.

It was with the last in mind that I journeyed again to BT Tower. (No trip 'upstairs' for me, as I had to get away for an unofficial 'bring your daughter to work' day.) This publication likes it when companies talk a lot about their customers (note: that's a hint to anyone who pitches to us) and BT does that.

I was particularly pleased to also get some time with BT Global Services' new CIO, JP Rangaswami, who was in fine form and looking good after some recent ill health. He used to be a key contact of ours while he was at investment bank DrKW and I hope we keep talking as much.

Always an interesting character, his input into wins within financial services will be big, I predict. BT has just won business with Credit Agricole and Credit Suisse.

Last autumn those on silicon.com who cover security were a little surprised when news came through that BT had acquired Counterpane, where security guru Bruce Schneier is the life and soul. Schneier had at the time said he'd been working on a deal for about a year.

For the first time (that I'm aware of), BT revealed the deal had been "a bit bumpy - a lot of people are interested in that sort of thing". And now they say that expertise is winning them other business.

And finally, on an early tube into work this morning, an article in daily freesheet Metro caught my eye. There's a story claiming police are only interested in online fraud if it has meant someone losing more than £1,000.

That's pretty much in line with figures we've previously heard ourselves but something else caught my eye in this article - a quote from an eBay UK exec. OK, he was talking to a House of Lords committee but he's in the story nevertheless.

We hear from too many readers - and I even saw a statement from a Guardian journalist to the same effect recently - that eBay doesn't enter into a dialogue with them, sometimes over matters such as perceived wrongdoing on the site.

So I expect I might hear from eBay sometime soon. Might even find out who does their PR, if I'm lucky. Aside from that, the gentleman quoted in the Metro piece is Gareth Griffith, eBay's head of trust and safety. Just in case anyone wants to send a letter sometime.