On BBC 1's The Apprentice tonight, millions heard one of Lord Sugar's senior lieutenants embarrass himself.
Doing what ? exposing his clear lack of knowledge of I.T. terminology... not such an issue you might think, except the embearrassed head-honcho in question was none other than Bordon Tkachuk, CEO of Viglen Computers.
While grilling the apprentice candidate-you-loved-to-hate Stuart Baggs, Tkachuk was clearly heard to refer to the term "ISP" (Internet Service Provider) by saying "....I know what ISP is - Internet Service Protocol " and talked of it allowing "....internet connection .. over Bandwidth (sic)".
This makes about as much sense as a plumber telling you he's going to install a gruntle-nirgle under your sink. The man plainly knows nothing at all about I.T. in detail - tens of thousands of IT professionals jumped on Twitter as soon as he said it, and started shooting from the hip: " #WhatisanISP ? Internet Sugar-Panderer ? Internet Service Plonker ? ".
None of this would matter of course if he hadn't been arguing hammer and tongs with Stuart Baggs about whether he (Baggs) really owned a telecoms company: Tkachuk insisted he didn't - Baggs (correctly) said he did, and that he offered telecoms services to customers on his home island the Isle of Man. Bagg's company, Bluewave, offers wireless hotspots and has a IP microwave link to the mainland to provide IP datacomms to businesses in the island. That's definitely "telecoms" to anyone in the business: but plainly Bordon Tkachuk is not in the IT business - though he might screw a few computers together now and then.
This column cordially invites Bordon Tkachuk or Lord Alan Sugar to issue an open letter of apology to Stuart Baggs for treating him so badly. Perhaps Bordon might like to hire Stuart as an I.T. adviser ?
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