The 10 Funniest IT Industry Episodes Of 2008

In his final CES keynote speech, Bill Gates had conference attendees rolling in the aisles with the showing of an hilarious video depicting his final day at Microsoft, during which Gates phones a star-studded array of friends and acquaintances to look for post-Microsoft employment.

Vastly funnier than the subsequent Microsoft television ads in which Gates appeared with comedian Jerry Seinfeld, the Last Day At Work video will forever serve as proof of Gates' underrated sense of humor.

In May, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was egged by an angry student -- and apparent open source proponent -- during a speech at a Hungarian University.

Claiming that Microsoft had stolen money from the Hungarian taxpayers, the student shouted "Give that money back, right now!" and began throwing eggs at Ballmer, who took shelter behind the podium until the attacker ran out of ammunition.

The incident quickly became etched in Internet history, and a Flash-based game soon appeared in which players could either fire eggs at Ballmer or assume the role of the egg-dodging Microsoft CEO.

Former HP CEO Carly Fiorina was, for a time, one of the highest profile supporters of John McCain's presidential campaign, making several appearances on various 24/7 cable news channels.

But that all changed in September when, in a radio interview, Fiorina declared that vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin lacks the ability to be CEO of a major corporation. Later, in a television appearance on MSNBC, Fiorina dug the hole even deeper with comments that probably had McCain aides reaching for the Tylenol.

"Well, I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation, I don't think Barack Obama could run a major corporation, I don't think Joe Biden could run a major corporation," said Fiorina, who soon after was ushered out of public view by furious McCain campaign aides.

In an August research note on corporate desktop trends, Forrester analyst Ben Gray said desktop Linux had achieved a "fairly impressive industry buzz", but then took a swipe at a large portion of Chicago's uber-passionate baseball fanbase.

According to Gray's report, "as optimistic as Linux enthusiasts are and will forever remain, they're beginning to sound like Cubs fans with the never-ending hope of 'There's always next year.'"

The Cubs, of course, haven't won the World Series since 1908. And although the Cubs were in first place when Gray published his report, and ended up making the playoffs, the team was swept in the first round by the Los Angeles Dodgers, adding another layer to decades of misery.

The MTV show 'Pimp My Ride' has brought indescribable joy to many owners of beat-up cars, and Microsoft and HP teamed up in September to do the same for SMBs with outdated PCs and servers.

Microsoft and HP's absurdly funny "Pimp My Infrastructure" contest included an over-the-top video in which an IT administrator named Harold has his sluggish, outdated infrastructure revamped with a combination of Microsoft's Windows Essentials Business Server 2008 and HP's BladeSystem c3000 solution, a.k.a. 'The Shortie.'

In a funny video that was shown in July at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference, Allison Watson, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Group, rapped about Microsoft's dedication to channel partners and took a couple of shots at Google.

The rap video includes gems such as:

"Cause I might be Micro, but I ain't soft / When we roll with partners, the posers drop"

and

"I roll with Google Maps, know what I'm sayin'? / Yo, I'm just playin'. Hey Google, you know I'm comin' for you."

As the head of one of the industry's strongest and largest channel programs, Watson certainly has license to talk some trash. But some partners at WPC were less than amused with Microsoft's unveiling of a new pricing structure for its enterprise SaaS offerings.

In September at Oracle's annual financial analyst meeting, CEO Larry Ellison made one of his most bombastic statements ever in response to a question from the audience about Oracle's cloud computing aims. Referring to the overuse of the term, Ellison went on a diatribe that included the following nugget of pure comedic gold:





"The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?" Ellison wondered.

In April at the Varnex conference in San Antonio, Bob Stegner, Synnex's senior vice president of marketing for North America, appeared in a video featuring footage from "The Terminator".





At the event, Stegner announced that he's "already back" to more than 125 VARs, to whom he stressed Varnex's goal of building a community for resellers that's defined by passion, and which also creates specific programs and tools to help VARs take their business to the next level.

It sounds like the stuff of April Fool's jokes, but Dell's attempt to trademark the term 'cloud computing' is all too real, as the industry found out in August when reports of the move surfaced. As it turns out, Dell originally submitted its trademark application for the term in March of 2007. In April of this year, Dell reached an important milestone along the road to getting approval from the U.S. Patent and Trademark office.





So it looks like this bizarre fairy tale could end up coming true. But VARs who've been butting heads with Dell for years may not be able to decide whether to laugh or cry if this trademark ends up being approved.

Everything Channel Executive Editor/News Steve Burke reacts to getting a pie in the face backstage at the ARC Awards ceremony. HP Channel chief Adrian Jones (left) and HP's Frank Rauch (right) seemed to enjoy delivering the tin pan full of frothy goodness.