“A risk-taking culture and close ties with universities are big reasons for the success of the U.S. computer industry, some of Silicon Valley’s brightest stars told Prime Minister Tony Blair on Sunday,” Adrian Croft reports for Reuters.
“Blair, on a mission to find out the secrets of the U.S. high-tech sector’s success and apply the lessons in Britain, traveled to the heart of California’s Silicon Valley to trade ideas with some of the sharpest minds in the business,” Croft reports.
Croft reports, “Chief executives around the table included Steve Jobs of computer maker Apple Computer Inc., John Chambers of network equipment maker Cisco Systems Inc., Hector Ruiz of chip maker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and Jonathan Schwartz of computer maker Sun Microsystems Inc.”
“‘We’re trying in our way in Britain to make sure the UK is a dynamic, innovative country,’ Blair told the high-tech leaders,” Croft reports.
Full article here.
Prat
GO TONY! AT LEAST HE IS NOT A GUTLESS, YELLOW BELLY COWARD LIB.
I hope Steve checked he still had all his rings and watches after shaking hands with Tony – he would also have needed a shower.
I didn’t see any mention of a Microsoft rep being included at that meeting. There was a time where Bill Gates would have had the head of the table at such a meeting. Is the slight to MS showing that the winds are changing in favor Apple or could it be that even Tony Blair recognizes the lack of technology coming from Microsoft or both?
What a fool. Please resign soon, Tony.
I wonder if Blair’s wife is enjoying yet another freebie.
How are those Republican policies working out there D?
Strangely absent from the meeting was Blair’s boyfriend, George W. Bush.
D, I totally agree with you. Thank God we have a President who is not afraid to send young men and women to die in foreign lands.
Grrrr… bl#%&&$y liberals, I’ll…… you just wait ’til I get my hands on you!
No MS, Dell, HP, IBM, Gateways, seems like the Brits are on the right track.
Tony Rules!
His record as PM, despite a few hiccoughs, is second to none.
He has managed to combine real social policies in a modern capitalist world. Britain is a better more caring place because of him.
(I wish his government was more pro-Mac though!)
It could have been worse – they could have got deputy Prime Minister ‘Two Jags’ Prescot!
Ahh, no sorry – he’d nipped off to Spain for a weekend break with his wife instead of being in the UK to look after things in Tony’s abscence…
There’s dedication for you!
Well this is a surprise after spending 10 years snivelling at the coat tails of Bill Gates (amongst significant others). Mind you a few of those types even venture onto here so they are hardly uncommon.
That said this is the first time that our beloved PM seems to have realised that Billy boy isn’t anywhere near the front of the queue when it actually comes to the sort of inovation that UK plc actually needs if it is to drag itsef out of the dark ages. The fact that this realisation is itself 10 years behind the reality unfortunately doesn’t actually bode well for any initiative. I think this is him jumping on a band wagon that someone behind the scenes has advised him would improve his cool factor while keeping a very big distance from someone else who has so recently anounced his resignation, who is now obvious to even the most dim fanboy yesterday’s man and whose current efforts are like most of TB’s Governments own IT schemes, years behind schedule, over complicated and fail miserably whenever they are turned on. Come to think of it these two factors are not entirely unrelated are they.
Car buffs often joke about British cars and cycles always dripping oil. This leads to speculation that the real reason that there are no British computer makers is that the engineers couldn’t figure out a way for the computers to leak oil.
He could have saved the taxpayers the plane trip costs and simply removed all government regulation and taxation in the UK technology sector. That would encourage major investment into UK technology ventures, and these ventures would succeed and fail on a free market.
In fact, if he scaled back his government in all areas to prevent them from doing anything (harming anything), he would see similar boosts in all other areas.
Of course, he wouldn’t take such suggestions: they would undermine his source of power.
This time the Irish got there first.
Well, part of the visit was to discuss trade with California companies…so it wouldn’t have made much sense to meet with someone from Washington state.
Yeh, I guess there must have been more meetings with Californian Bio-Genetic companysas well, as there’s no (total) ban on stem-cell research here in the UK, it makes sense for both sides to forge links…
HAH! No Gates anywhere to be seen, for sure.
But really, what does it matter? Blair couldn’t find his asshole with a funnel. His chiclets aren’t brown like his constituents, though … so I guess that’s something . . .
FOR ME TO POOP ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m sure Tony knows exactly where his asshole is…
…1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
so nice to see he could fit it in his bloody shedule. cheerio!
Blair is steadily making a mess of Great Britain.
It will take 10 years to recover from his 9 years of decisive mismanagement which has destroyed all of Thatcher’s legacy.
Would that make his wife the Blair Witch? (j/k)
Ampar, that is more than I can “Blair”
“couldn’t figure out a way for the computers to leak oil…”
Yeah, but I’ll bet they could manage overheating and electrical problems
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“Ampar, that is more than I can “Blair””
So elegant or should I say, so “tony”. Oh lord that was common!