Top 10 questions IT leaders should face under oath

I do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

In the last few weeks, some of the world's highest profile technology chief executives have been grilled under oath over the use of Sun's Java technology, now owned by Oracle, within the Android operating system designed by Google.

This has meant Oracle's Larry Ellison, Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, and Sun Microsystem's prior chiefs Scott McNealy and Jonathan Schwartz have all been forced to answer questions they may have otherwise wished to avoid or brush over.

We on V3 are often left frustrated by media trained executives performing such dodges, so it was fun to watch the leaders squirm and it got us thinking about some of the most pertinent questions we'd love to put to other's in the industry, under oath, and see how they coped.

10. To Bill Gates: Are you concerned about the future of Microsoft?

Bill - can we call you Bill? - your company owned the 1990s, but as the 21st century really hits its stride, Microsoft could very well become obsolete.

The company's biggest product, the Windows operating system, has become less important than ever as more and more everyday tools move from the desktop to the cloud. And while Microsoft controls the browser space, their share is hardly comparable to the market stranglehold enjoyed in the heyday of Windows.

And there there's the mobile space. While Microsoft hasn't been completely left in the dust, they were dangerously close. Windows Phone and Windows 8 Metro have both been touted as promising products, but Android and iOS have had a tremendous head start and are still viewed as "hipper" products than Microsoft's latest creation.

There's still that famed Redmond war chest, but even that lacks the clout it once held. Apple is no longer the struggling niche computer maker it was in 1998, and Google's search holdings are among the most lucrative revenue streams in the business. Microsoft's two biggest rivals have the funds on hand to match any effort to outspend or undercut on pricing.

So Bill Gates, as the man who built Microsoft, how confident are you that the company will still be a market force 10-15 years from now?

Top 10 questions IT leaders should face under oath

I do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

9. To Stephen Elop: Do you wish you'd chosen Android over Windows Phone?

The Windows Phone operating system is a lovely piece of software, and one that is too readily overlooked by the masses intent on an iPhone or Android-powered device, but because of this duopoly it was always going to prove a tough sell.

Nevertheless, Nokia's chief Stephen Elop was convinced it was the right strategy and backed the future of the firm on the crossover of Nokia's hardware and Redmond's software, claiming there was space for a third ecosystem in the mobile phone market.

However, the union has not gone well so far. While the devices are sleek, the sales have been poor, and the firm is shedding cash left, right and centre, forcing several ratings agencies to place its credit rating as junk or near-junk.

With Android still soaring high, and Nokia's reputation for making decent handsets still seemingly intact, one can't help but wonder if Elop and his cohorts sometimes wonder if they'd have just been better off following the crowd and picking the little green robot.

8. To Mark Zuckerberg: What really happened at the foundation of Facebook?

The founding of Facebook is so surrounded in rumour, speculation and movie mythology that it's hard to pin down even a few of the most basic facts around the creation of the world's most popular site.

Just how influenced was Zuckerberg by the Winklevoss twins, did he make the site just to help meet girls, did he really report his friend Eduardo Saverin to the Harvard authorities for making a chicken eat, well, a chicken, as The Social Network would have us believe?

The only way to find out for sure would be to make Mark swear an oath and reveal all, no doubt to the rapt attention of the world's media as it covers itself in a lather over the firm's forthcoming flotation on the stock market.

7. To Léo Apotheker: Do you regret the decisions you made at HP?

Léo Apotheker was thrust into the role of Hewlett Packard's (HP) chief executive in November 2010, succeeding Cathie Lesjak after the high profile departure of Mark Hurd, but his tenure was not a success.

Once in power, Apotheker's decisions caused the company stock value to drop by 40 per cent. His plans to ditch its WebOS operating system and leave the PC-making business shocked and dismayed the industry.

The board quickly decided it was all going horribly wrong, replacing him with former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman in September 2011 after just 11 months at HP.

It'd be wonderful to hear what Apotheker had to say about his time at the firm, the decisions he made and if he wishes he'd done things differently.

However, with some $10m in severance fees, he's probably relaxing on an island somewhere, far from our inquisition.

Top 10 questions IT leaders should face under oath

I do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

6. To Yahoo: Do you regret turning down Microsoft's $44bn deal?

In some ways the answer to this is obviously going to be a resounding yes, delivered through a combination of muffled sobs, yelps and tears, as the Yahoo board, and then chief executive Jerry Yang are forced to once again wonder why they rejected a ludicrous $44bn deal for the company.

Hubris, folly, madness, whatever the reasons, the rejection marked a turning point in the company's history, almost immediately entering a long, slow and steady decline that continues to this day, with Yang and many of his cohorts gone from the company.

There's been little on record from those in charge about why they did it, or how they now feel, but you can imagine if pushed they'd all admit it was one of the worst businesses mistakes they had ever made.

Over at Redmond, though, there's probably a few who wake up in the middle of the night and thank their stars the deal was rejected, saving the company enough money to buy a small country.

5. To Sony: Do you wish you'd handled the PS3 jailbreak more delicately?

In its history Sony has had its fair share of PR nightmares, but none have been on the scale of its 2011 PlayStation Network (PSN) crisis.

Though multiple theories have been thrown out, analysts and critics generally agree that the company's treatment of George Hotz was the straw that broke the camel's back, giving hackers the motivation they needed to begin their ongoing campaign against Sony.

George Hotz, aka GeoHot, came into Sony's firing-line back in 2010 after he released a hack on his blog and website that, among other things, allowed users to play pirated games on their PlayStation 3.

In response Sony not only removed the consoles' ability to run the Linux operating system - the hack only worked if applied in the consoles Linux mode - but also took Hotz to court in a high profile lawsuit.

With hacker's opening attack on the company's PSN seeing as many 100 million PSN and Qriocity user accounts and billing information and the subsequent loss of public trust damaging its already shrinking wallet, we'd like to ask Sony: was it really worth it?

Top 10 questions IT leaders should face under oath

I do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

3. To the government: Why was £12bn not enough to build an IT system for the NHS?

The former government, with its National Programme for IT (NPfIT), intended to provide an individual electronic care record for every UK resident that could be rapidly transmitted between different parts of the NHS system.

The system was meant to be delivered by 2004 at a cost of £2.3bn, but this rose to somewhere between £12bn and £30bn, and was never delivered. Now the coalition government has scrapped the system, and is opening up the NHS to many different contractors (perhaps an even worse policy).

The US company CSC, responsible for delivering the never delivered centralised system, has now paid back £174m to the government because of the project's failure, but goodness knows what happened to all the rest of that money.

4. To GCHQ: Just what data can you, and do you, gather on UK citizens?

Iain Lobban is no attention seeker - hardly a surprise given his day job as director of UK snooping agency GCHQ.

In one of the few interviews he's given on the record, he was at pains to point out that tales of the intelligence agency building a vast communications database were a fantasy. Not that this has stopped the conspiracy theorists.

With the government seemingly intent on revising plans to monitor the email, mobile and phone calls of each and every Briton, it seems forehead-slappingly obvious the GCHQ will have some role to play.

While we at V3 might not go as far as tying out interviewees to a chair and injecting them with truth serum, given an option to ask an uncomfortable question and get an honest response, it would be interesting to ask GCHQ to what extent it is already spying on its citizens private communication?

Whether we'd like the response is an entirely different question of course.

Top 10 questions IT leaders should face under oath

I do solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

2. To Watson: What's the meaning of this universe?

IBM's supercomputer Watson can analyse the meaning and context of human language, and quickly search and process vast amounts of information to produce answers to almost any question.

The system hit the headlines in 2011 when IBM used its capabilities to play the game show Jeopardy and beat former champions to 'win' a $1m jackpot.

Now Watson is being deployed by financial and insurance institutions to help conduct risk-assessment profiles of customers.

So Watson, can you please search through the world's many books of religion and philosophy, as well as whatever else would be of assistance, to help us find out the meaning of life?

And please don't tell us it's 42!

1. To Einstein: What most impresses you about modern technology?

Ok, stretching the rules a bit here, but if we could ask anyone any question, then the super-brained German physicist would be the one, as it would be fascinating to get his take on what he considers humanity's greatest technological innovation since he departed this world.

V3 would assume it would be something grand like the internet, which has helped bring mankind closer together and helping increase the flow of knowledge around our planet, or perhaps GPS systems, helping us position ourselves to within a few feet from satellites high in the earth's orbit.

Then again, perhaps it would be something more individual like the iPhone.

To someone from that era, all that technology and power packed into a device so small, sleek and shiny it fits in your pocket would seem utterly incomprehensible, although if anyone could offer a way to improve it, it's probably Einstein.