Will London 2012 serve up an Acer in the Technology Games?

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Robert van Mann keeps on trucking

IT watchers are hoping that the IT infrastructure and services built for the event will set a new gold standard in the Tech Olympics

Vul de Olympische Spelen. Waar is mijn Engels ontbijt?

For me the Olympics, is all about stopping off at a Little Chef for the breakfast of the same name when en route to a customer – not the forthcoming athletic event.

It’s what your country is known for the world over and is truly in first place when it comes to preparing for that long slog up the A, B and M roads followed by a long customer meeting and a punishing drive back.

Two rashers of back bacon, a pork sausage, two free range eggs, mushroom, fried potatoes, griddled tomato and baked beans: All Served with toast or fried bread for under £7! And they say its “Rip off Britain!”

Combined with a sugary tea to balance the Scotch from the night before, the Olympic Breakfast it is a sure fire winner that not even Heston Blumenthal could replace from the menu.

The only lottery involved in getting tickets is the actual National Lottery machine when you walk in to most Chefs. You might have a wait a few moments for a seat, but there is free Wi-Fi for God’s sake, and it’s a lot better than a Regus managed office that’s for sure.

Be proud Engles for Breakfast GB, the breakfast of champions.

When I used to smoke. I would always reach for an après Olympique to kick start the CNS. Making sure all the organs are working before driving is always a good accident prevention technique and smoking a ciggie before getting behind a wheel was probably in the AA manual until the late 1970s.

Combining this technique with the obligatory tin of barley sugars purchased on the way out of the Chef will ensure you will have the stamina to make the meeting and enough sugar and nicotine to keep awake on the road.

Although I am not interested in the Games themselves, save for watching 6-feet of sunshine Kerri Walsh in the women’s beach volleyball, I do wish I was an Acer Distributor for the last four years: 13,000 computers 11,500 desktops, Internet pavilions and bunch of tablets will all be used for the Games and could have come from one of my warehouses.

Not only would this would have helped me hit my numbers for the next five years, but a massive case study for future business and sales.

I did use to sell Acer Ferraris when my old mate used to run the show at Acer UK in the hope that if I sold enough I would get one or even blag a ticket to Maranello. But I switched to Lenovo when they got the previous Gig for the Olympics.

I will also be watching closely how the games play out in the Mobility and social media generation and how the infrastructure will cope with the massive demand for data and storage—an anticipated 96TB worth of storage alone.
Like the Little Chef breakfast, Acer’s involvement in the Games is a Herculean effort and will be managed by 350 onsite staff providing 24/7 support.

And with nearly 70 operational facilities, it is great opportunity to showcase how technology companies can manage mission critical data in real time and at the same time underpin the hopefully smooth running of the event.

It may take you 12 hours to get home on road networks in the next few weeks, but at least the roads have Little Chefs, Wi-Fi and a 20 year old British classic that is true champion!