Visit to Putney to make common cause with ICL against IBM to encourage international OSI standards and on to my interview with ‘My Business Magazine’ as the Welsh miners now barricade themselves in their headquarters in an attempt to resist the courts seizure of their assets and the rain eventually comes to end the heatwave
A working day. Up fairly early, to breakfast and in my brown suit off by car to London and Putney to meet Roger Holmes of ICL. We discussed the present activities of IBM and its cooperative agreement on networks with British Telecom. I am given the press statements of BT and ICL and also made privy to an internal briefing document prepared by ICL on the dangers of BT support for SNA rather than the internationally supported OSI standards. We discuss the alternatives of close cooperation or formal consultancy and I get ICL’s support for the realignment of UK computer trade groupings. Then off by car through Kensington where I parked and looked around Harrods at stationery and briefcases. I had lunch of a couple of pastries before driving on to Kings Cross Station to rendezvous with ‘Your Business Magazine’ at the offices of Mike East’s MEPR.
Their Editor interviewed me about the Comart story whilst his photographer took copious pictures. In conversation with Mike East afterwards he tells me about TEC-NET, an international cooperative federation of PR Consultants, and expresses hope that we can work together in the future. I also get copies of recent editorial in Computer Weekly, Electronics Weekly and The Evening Standard in which they have covered the Kode/Comart takeover and my future BMMG plans. News tonight of the first rain for some time in this summer’s drought, Thatcher’s statements on a cabinet reshuffle this autumn and the further recrimination over the miner’s strike. The Welsh miners have barricaded themselves in their headquarters in an attempt to resist the courts seizure of assets.