Most Americans probably are not intimately familiar with Huawei (pronounced "Wa-way," as if Gilda Radner of Saturday Night Live fame were asked to pronounce the name). The company's founder, Ren Zhengfei is a former officer of the People's Liberation Army.
Tough to know what to make of that. When it comes to speaking with the press, Ren is a regular Greta Garbo. A mini-profile Forbes ran three years ago noted that many of Huawei's major customers are state-run businesses in China. And while Ren owns 1 percent of the company, the rest belongs to an unidentified "union."
Go figure.
Meanwhile, Ren has gone about building Huawei into a success story disregarding the usual corporate niceties. In 2000--three years before the WMD craze got us all nutso about taking out Saddam--the CIA accused Huawei of secretly selling a communications system to Iraq. In the final report of the Iraq Survey Group, Huawei and two other Chinese companies were singled out for carrying out "extensive work in and around Baghdad"--mainly telecommunication switches and the installation of fiber-optic cable.
Then in 2003, Cisco socked Huawei with a patent infringement lawsuit. Cisco claimed Huawei ripped off its intellectual property to make a lineup of routers and switches. Huawei denied the allegations though in the end caved.
But if at all possible, business doesn't let politics intrude. So it is that Friday we learned that Bain Capital is paying $2.2 billion to acquire 3Com. Part of the deal involves China's Huawei Technologies, which will acquire a minority stake in 3Com.
And, oh, by the way, Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor running for the Republican presidential nomination--he headed Bain Capital for 14 years.
Six degrees of separation. In this case only 2--but who's counting.
I wonder whether a future President Romney might have commented on Huawei figuring in a major U.S. tech acquisition. I'm darned sure candidate Romney has since turned off his cell phone for an early start to the weekend.
Either Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is trying to redeem himself for previously knocking the CNN-YouTube debates' "demeaning" format (thanks to an animated snowman posing questions about global warming), or he's not so hostile to the user-generated sphere after all.
In any case, the former Massachusetts governor's campaign on Wednesday announced it is now soliciting help from the mashup-happy masses in crafting his new official television ad. Partnering with Yahoo's Jumpcut.com online video-editing service, a new contest implores savvy video splicers to put together a 27- or 57-second feature using multimedia furnished by his campaign--or by others, provided that the content doesn't violate anyone else's copyright or trademark. The prize is use of your creation on Romney campaign materials and on an array of broadcasting media.
Mitt Romney
(Credit: Romney for President)The campaign will accept submissions until September 17, and voting will occur at the candidate's official campaign Web site, MittRomney.com. According to the rules and regulations, the entries will be judged based on "creativity (50 percent), on-screen appeal (25 percent) and persuasive and appropriate enthusiasm for Romney for President (25 percent)."
There are a few catches to contest entry, of course: You must "certify" that you're at least 18 and that you support Romney's presidential aspirations.
So far, there's just one submission to the "Team Mitt: Create Your Own Ad" venture. A fairly straightforward photo montage with a backdrop of Romney discussing his beliefs, it has already drawn the Web-based equivalent of a yawn from one commenter, who posted, "I feel the picture sequencing is not strong enough."
Although his campaign is marketing the move as an "unprecedented" grassroots outreach technique, it's certainly not the first time candidates have sought interactive input about campaign decisions during this run. Hillary Clinton asked Web site visitors to select her campaign song, and John Edwards urged his supporters to upload YouTube clips of themselves and their family members saying the phrase, "we the people," which his staffers used as fodder for the former North Carolina senator's ads.
Could the Romney contest be a recipe for controversy? Recall, of course, the infamous "Hillary 1984" spoof on an old Apple Computer ad by a briefly anonymous video blogger and Obama supporter. It's not clear whether the campaign will be doing any filtering of the various submissions. Its guidelines caution: "The possibilities are virtually limitless, just be creative and responsible."
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