Dare to Wrestle: Quiz 1 Key

So, last week we left you with some brain-scratch. You can sit back and enjoy the answers today. As they say, every question has a story of its own. Cruise along.

Dare to Wrestle Quiz 1

1. Which Enterprise software giant's head honcho recently admitted that the company has made many mistakes, particularly in the area of burgeoning maintenance fees?

A. Oracle

B. SAS

C. SAP

Answer: C. SAP: Chairman Hasso Plattner was reportedly found remarking (at the announcement on ex-CEO Leo Apotheker’s departure) how SAP would be focused on rebuilding trust and how it lost sight of smaller customers and made a mistake with the hike on maintenance fees. A media report quote shows what Hasso said, “"I was part of the decision that we had to raise maintenance fees…that is not something we can put in Léo's shoes. This was done by SAP. We made a mistake and we have to change course here, and regain trust from the customers who were more than upset. Unfortunately, the head of the company takes the blame, whether it was just or not."

2. At the $2.3 billion dental plan group Delta Dental, the CIO position was left vacant about four years back and has been filled by a

A. CFO

B. Another industry-peer CIO

C.CEO

Answer: A. CFO: After its CIO left, the position was in ‘elimination’  status and later CFO Laura Czelada took over its IT reins. It is reported that she "did such a good job she retained the responsibility," while someone was appointed to report to her.

3. Can you name the company from where CIO Stuart Scott was publicly fired from?

A. VMware

B. General Electric

C. Microsoft

Answer: C. Microsoft. In November 2007, Scott was dismissed from Microsoft after internal investigations and alleged violation of company policies

4. Which international IT project has always been in the news for wrong reasons like cost creeps, missed deadlines etc and has been tagged as a failure by many?

A. NASA Space project II

B. ISRO Cryo Arc

C. NHS Healthcare

Answer: C. UK National Health Service project (roughly about £12.7billion plan to wire up the country's health system) has been in the news more for project creeps, bugs and snags since its inception. NHS, by the way, is world’s largest publicly funded health service and is also the largest employer in Europe.

5. Which country's PM had to offer a posthumous apology to World War II code cracker and computing soldier Alan Turing last year?

A. Germany

B. USA

C. Britain 

C. Britain: Last September, PM Gordon Brown apologised for the "appalling" persecution of World War II code breaker Alan Turing. This was apropos Turning’s conviction of "gross indecency" in 1952. As a result of being stifled, Turing fell into depression and committed suicide two years later in 1954, aged just 41 . The atoning appeared after a public wave and a seismic petition impact that involved many celebrities (like Biologist Richard Dawkins). 

Brown’s apology said, “Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. …..In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ - in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence - and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison - was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later. …So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better."

6. Is CISCO named as an acronym, or does it derive itself from a city's name?

A. Yes

B. No

C. Both

B. No. It’s not an acronym. It owes its provenance to the city of San FranCISCO, where the foundation of this networking giant started.

7. Is it possible that the word 'Yahoo' was invented by Jonathan Swift in 'Gulliver's Travels' and that's why Yahoo's co-founders David and Jerry used it?

A. Nah, are you kidding

B. May be

C. Yes and there's a special reason why they did so

C. Yes, it was indeed invented by Swift in this book and Yahoo’s founders David Filo and Jerry Yang apparently considered themselves Yahoos.