---
title: Whats that Coming Over The Hill A Big Blue Monster? An Even More Evil Plan
date: 2007-02-23T12:18:53Z
modified: 2007-02-23T12:18:53Z
permalink: "https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/whats-that-coming-over-the-hill-a-big-blue-monster-an-even-more-evil-plan/"
type: post
status: publish
excerpt: ""
wpid: 915
categories:
  - Uncategorized
timestamp: 2007-02-23T12:18:53Z
tags:
  - Uncategorized
---

Met up with some fellow dorks on Tuesday for social wineworking- namely [Roo Reynolds](http://rooreynolds.com/2007/02/21/social-events-wine-20-at-bedales/), [Hugh MacLeod](http://www.gapingvoid.com/), [Alan Wood](http://www.folknology.com/), [Dennis Howlett](http://www.accmanpro.com/), [Andy Piper](http://andypiper.wordpress.com/2007/02/21/social-networking-through-social-wine-drinking/), [Kyb](http://kybernetikos.com/)\*update\* oops… and [Richard Brown](http://gendal.blogspot.com/2007/02/interesting-people.html). One of the subjects I raised with the [Hursley](http://www-5.ibm.com/uk/locations/hursley_explore.html) (IBM’s premier UK R&D facility, and perhaps the most beautiful campus in the world) crew was how much I dislike IBM’s to my mind pointless rebranding of MQSeries as WebSphere MQ. But IBM Corporate already knows how I feel about that. We also discussed second life and the usual metaverse gubbins. We’re talking about drinking some [Stormhoek](http://www.stormhoek.com/) at Hursley (more social wineworking, this time a green apple with a slight hint of enterprisey), which would be nice. One mischievous 900lb gorilla marketing idea that bubbled up was for IBM to keep the pressure on Microsoft with an embrace, extend and extinguish cartoon strategy. Microsoft has the [Blue Monster](http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/003388.html) campaign, which is [nice](http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/corporate/microsofts_blue_monster.html). But couldn’t a Big Blue monster just swallow a Blue Monster whole? I can see it in second life now… Change The World or get Eaten.

![monster](http://www.gapingvoid.com/microsoftlitho219-thumb.jpg)

on a final note I just want to thank Hugh for his extremely kind words about me and Dennis. We may not have short head readerships, but we have working business models.