NatWest's IT threats dismissed by industry experts

NEWS The guests on this week's Behind the Headlines were very sceptical about the threat by the IT director at NatWest to resign if the takeover by the Bank of Scotland goes ahead. As reported in Silicon.com on Monday, Achi Racov, IT chief at NatWest, said he would resign and many of his staff would follow him if the hostile takeover went ahead. Frank Coyle, IT director at Menzies Distribution was dismissive and said: "This is a standard defence against a hostile takeover. You try and make IT impossible to integrate and therefore kill the takeover." Coyle claimed Racov was working together with the NatWest board and it was part of corporate strategy. He added that he doubted the Bank of Scotland would be fooled by such tactics. A spokeswoman for NatWest indicated that Racov's comments were a reaction to his view that the Bank of Scotland IT proposals were risky and it would be his reputation on the line if they failed. Other stories under discussion in this week's show were BT boss Sir Iain Vallance's robust defence of the telco's behaviour and impact on British business at the Telecom Managers Association conference and the likelihood of the European Union getting its own dot-eu domain name to counter the US's dot-com. To watch the whole programme see http://www.silicon.com/a34435 .