Something odd is due to happen at the Microsoft Tech-Ed customer conference in Amsterdam next month, of that much Sneak can be quite sure. Exactly how odd remains to be seen. The Tech-Ed web site urges delegates to "Get inside and feel the rhythm", adding only that the opening keynote will "kick off with a unique experience". Sneak, of course, has further information to impart. Apparently the "unique" bit will involve both a world record attempt and some bongos. Yes, bongos. Sneak suspects that the 6,000-odd keynote attendees will each be handed a cheap drum and then be urged - in that whoopin' and hollerin' way that goes down so well in the US and so badly in Europe - to bash said drum in order to become part of the world's largest ever bongo band. Or perhaps the world's least musical bongo band. Sneak also suspects that someone in the organising team may have taken an instruction that the keynote must 'drum up some enthusiasm' a little too literally.

28 May 2004