A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman - Robert Frost
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Vodafone muscles in on entrepreneur site
A WEB site that claims it is the British small business/budding entrepreneurs' answer to Facebook is set to launch officially in November [2008]. Vodafone has already muscled in to cover the mobility aspects.
Called Smarta.com, it will have official UK government backing from agencies like the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. Hmm. One wonders why people can't find their web site?
Anyway, it's clear the real power behind Smarta is one Ms Shaa Wasmund who now runs Brightstation Ventures but founded Mykindaplace for teenage girls.
Incidentally the actual Smarta site appears to have been designed by some mob calling itself Splendid. And though you can't actual join Smarta yet you can sign up for email updates.
Wasmund has talked some big name UK business names – including Richard Needham from Dyson and Angus Kerr from Collins Stewart [eh?] – into backing the project.
However, she has also charmed Kyle Whitehill, director of Vodafone's enterprise business unit, into backing the project. In a video on the web site, Whitehill claims that mobile will revolutionise modern businesses.
Obviously it will. It's just a question of how it will achieve this accolade.
Anyway, Vodafone has promised to provide advice on mobile working problems
like accessing email to those who join Smarta.
The cynical amongst us might suggest this is just a defensive move to keep RIM's
Crackberry out o of the picture.
Whitehill's take on Vodafone's entrepreneurial credentials is fascinating. He reckons the founders simply left Racal to set up a commercial version of technology it was already selling to defence.
Except that Vodafone's founders didn't go it alone, the company was part of Racal right from the word go.
He also claimed that the founders merely "went one junction up theM4 from Reading to Newbury" and founded one of the UK's top companies just 20 years ago.
Hmm. That means if this INQ hack were to go one junction up the M25 to Chertsey, it might work. Nice theory. µ
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On a point of fact Kyle Whitehill is no longer Enterprise Business Unit Director at Vodafone UK (as has not been since Mar 2008). He is currently Chief Operating Officer at Vodafone Essar in India.

Mark Bond is the new(ish) EBU director for Vodafone UK.
On a point of fact, Kyle Whitehill is now (since March 2008) Chief Operating Officer for Vodafone Essar in India, Mark Bond is the new Director of Vodafone's Enterprise Business Unit.
Racal make military comms and Vodafone was the civil side. Remember when Vodafone was called Racal Vodafone? Vodafone then outgrew its parent.

If you can find a common public use for military tech then that's where the real money is.