Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Becomes Wembley Stadium's Backer
Xlylith writes "BBC News is reporting that Bill Gates and software giant Microsoft have signed to become first "Founding Partner" of the new Wembley stadium, in a five-year deal worth at least £5m. Microsoft technology will be used in the stadium, and the firm will get use of the pitch for 90 minutes a year. Guess where Vista will be launched in UK next year? Microsoft's press release is also available."
Guess where Vista will be launched in UK next year?
Next year? Are you sure?
How appropriate -- Microsoft is the backer of one of the best places to catch a virus.
Yep!
They call that "Marketing", from what I've heard...
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g
YTARY!
Microsoft Soccer? or Microsoft Football for the euros...
nuf said
Atleast microsoft can be accused of astroturfing
One of the features of this new stadium is easy throwable chairs.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Wouldn't goldenpalace be a better comparison?
Great ... no more working scoreboards.
I hope they use Vista to control the annoying advertising boards with scrolling animated adverts though. I'll be happy to see them go blank.
Even though I don't think Microsoft has bought out a sporting venue to advertise, it's typical agressive Microsoft Marketing(TM).
But you can't say it doesn't work.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
How about putting the M$ Logo for Vista and Windows on the soccer ball for a game against the home team (probably sponsored by $Bill) and the Penguins. Penguins win in a shutout. (I can dream...)
Blue screen of soccer riot.
This is a safe use of Windows. If it crashes, and the building isn't moving it can't collide with anything.
Hot dogs can continue to cook with residual heat, and be served while the servers are repaired.
Sooner or later the blue screen of death will hit the big board but the worst that will happen is people get a good chuckle and don't know what the current score is.
Linux will make it inside as PDAs/cell phones with Linux will work despite Microsoft efforts.
Hey, now you can watch a live game and hack a computer at the same time! Just don't lock the doors.
because slashdot is a links site. We post links to other places, but it depends how quickly people submit the story to how soon it gets posted.
I like muppets.
Does it run linux? => NO Unless you disable the DRM (Security Guards)
I want a google stadium. It runs LINUX!
My UID is prime is yours?
To be honest the building does move but not in a big way!
For this reason, the sliding roof remains an integral part of the design for the new Wembley. Options such as a palletised pitch (moving a patchwork pitch in and out of the Stadium between events) or regularly re-laying the pitch were rejected as inappropriate for Wembley. Instead, computer models have been made of air movement and sunlight on the existing pitch and the unique moving roof designed for the new Stadium. This will be left open between events but can be moved to line up with the touchline within 15 minutes, ensuring every spectator is sheltered during an event. A further bonus is an improved TV image for fans watching at home. In bright sunlight the roof can be withdrawn to allow clear TV pictures uninterrupted by heavy shadows on the pitch. At 3pm on Cup Final day, for instance, only the two southern corner flags will be in shadow.
And I doubt the underlying computer system to be anything related to MS.
They won't be providing security. That'll cost you extra.
"Well, Andy, as you can clearly see from the replay, the defender performed an illegal operation and the referee had no choice but to send an error report to Microsoft."
I say we take-off and slashdot the site from orbit... it's the only way to be sure
Microsoft signs as England backer
Bill Gates and software giant Microsoft and the Queen have signed to become first "Founding Partner" of the new England, in a five-year deal worth at least £50m.
Microsoft technology will be used in all official functions, and the firm will get use of the soil for 90 minutes a year.
'Iconic'
"We are tremendously proud to be the first (founding partner)," said Nick Barley, business and marketing officer of Microsoft UK.
"You won't see our name on consumers' shirts but there is something about England - it's an icon, it's a legend, it's part of British culture and life. The word Microsoft will appear on every one of their biometric ID cards, which will be renamed to Passport and we're working on a deal to transcribe it into consumers genes and have obtained a patent for that."
The original England opened in 1066 and eventually became the British Empire. The Empire won its last match against Germany in the century and recently defeated Argentina.
Regeneration programme
English executives say over two million visitors will visit the England each year, and that the project will generate approximately 5,000 new jobs.
The deal is at the heart of a regeneration programme called Vision 2020, creating new homes, offices and community sport and leisure facilities as well as improved public transport links.
However its construction has not been entirely smooth, with delays and cost overruns, with Australian builders Multiplex saying it will not make a profit on the contract. Bill Gates dissmissed the builder's assertions saying the new facts will get TCO straight.
"The union of Microsoft and the new state-of-the-art kingdom is fantastic news and will help resurrect the Empire as the world's leading sports and entertainment venue," said a representative.
Business Aims
"We won't have any of that Open Business going on here," Bill smiled as he toured a Castle, "I got so sick of hearing people slipping out of my grip in Munich, Mass and all that. We're going to enjoy a good market here and everywhere we are able to purchase customers."
Disney and Warner executives were stung by the deal. A collective "I can't believe we let that tin horn beat us to it!" was heard in board meetings in both companies.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Sweet. It'll give us another chance to test the Stadium Sponsor Curse.
Why are we hearing about Microsoft's marketing plans all the time now? Over and over about their budget for marketing the Xbox, and now this. So Microsoft is going to have their name on a stadium in England - so what?
rooooar
The Blue Screen of Death is going to look awesome on a screen the size of a small house!
And you can sneak in on the second Tuesday of every month, pending security patch installation!
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
Lots of backdoors.
An abundance of Windows (1/2 broken, the other 1/2 always locked up).
No security. (You'll have to pay another company for that.)
and a sports slogan over the main enterance that applies so well to Windows Vista... "There's always next year."
Will it make it a blue field of death? Seriously... if MS is serious about putting their name out there in such a way that they boast about their own systems running the place, they'd better have some VERY, VERY talented people running the IT infastructure.
FTFA: Microsoft technology will be used in the stadium
I wonder what it looks like when an entire soccer stadium blue-screens.
This sig is false.
They think it's all over... (Blue screen causes entire stadium to crash) ... It is now!
- over for those of you who dont follow World Cup football)
(http://www.answers.com/topic/they-think-it-s-all
Oxford Dictionaries Online
With Microsoft's Servers licensing policy, you will have to pay twice the price of admission to see the tennis doubles matches... Wait, are we talking about Wimbledon?
Wasn't Wembley a fraggle?
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
"Guess where Vista will be launched in UK next year?"
Wembley stadium was originally scheduled to be opened in 2003. It's been delayed to 2006. And the centerpiece of the design was to be "four scyscraping masts". The new Pillars of Wembley perhaps? Amid lots of delays and mis-management, the new Pillars of Wembley have been dropped from the plans, and are to be replaced with an arch instead.
Nowhere could be more apt to launch Longhorn.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/406613.stm
The team today was sporting their new all-blue uniforms.
In fine print on the ball:
This ball has been sponsored by Microsoft.
Please read the EULA for more information and legal terms.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
...all the corruption on the project, such as British companies spending lots of money on getting materials and people ready for the project only for it to be handed off to other (usualy foreign) firms. And Microsoft technology being used in the stadium?! The damn thing will never be finished!
will i neeed DRM capable ear's to listen to it? and will i get charged for distrubuting the music if i sing the song(even with poor quality), near others?
let Europe have the next version of windows, we don't need it over here. this is a godsend!
It so happens that I went to the UK launch of Windows XP, which was held at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Not a bad event, although Steve needs a new joke writer.
Now, that venue seats 3,000 people, and while I am of course an extremely important person, I'm not so important that they had to exclude 70,000 lesser people. So launching Vista in a 73,000 capacity venue is going to look a bit sparse, don't you think?
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Yep, USians is still clever. Keep it going, enlightened brother.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
I quite understand - after all why would you want American "quality" goods?! Hahaha. No, I quite understand. :)
Perhaps that's why a certain European began work on Linux
While the ground has been redeveloped the FA Cup final, League Cup final and Charity Shield have been been played at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff
h arityshield.php
d /
Since 2002, it's been known as the Community Shield
http://www.napit.co.uk/viewus/infobank/football/c
http://www.thefa.com/TheFACup/TheFACommunityShiel
I just don't understand how some companies can be so oblivious to the PR implications of a move like this.
The new Wembley stadium is late by several years, grossly over budget and most likely to annoy people in the UK since it is a monument to centralization in London (finals of any major football tournaments are traditionally played there, meaning that out of London fans have to travel to London, with all the inconvenience this carries).
Wembley has become sinonimous with incompetence (up there with the Millenium Dome) in the popular imagination.
The fact that MS has decided to associate themselves with Wembley Stadium is telling and tremendously ironic.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
When I was 12, I had this friend and we used to sing "Bon Jobby: Living on a Jobby" together.
We gotta hold on to what we got,
It doesn't make a difference if we do one or not,
We've got each other and that's all right for jobbies,
We'll give it a shot!
Ooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh we're half way there,
Oh oh, living on a jobby..
Stick Men
Ah, yes... isn't it?
Young boys, in the park
Jumpers for goalposts
Marvellous!