MS mix-up: A Net-enabled loo?

LOS ANGELES: Is it a Web-surfing portable toilet or a public relations nightmare -- or both? Microsoft Corp. reversed its position for the second time in 24 hours on Tuesday over whether or not it had ever planned to launch a portable toilet with a built-in Internet terminal in Britain this summer.

On Monday, the world's largest software maker had said the "iLoo", which was described in minute detail in an April 30 press release by its British subsidiary, was a hoax and apologized for any ‘confusion or offense’.

But now, Microsoft switched its story and said that the iLoo had been a legitimate project by its British MSN Internet service that was terminated after the initial announcement prompted controversy, ridicule and disgust. "Corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington, looked at it and decided maybe this wasn't a good idea," said Lisa Gurry, MSN group product manager.

Gurry said the iLoo had been intended as part of a public relations campaign to promote the company's money-losing MSN service in unexpected places. The same campaign had previously featured Web access on London park benches and beach chairs in France.

Newspapers and news services, including Reuters, the Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal, reported on Microsoft's initial iLoo announcement.

Reuters also ran a detailed conceptual diagram of the iLoo, which was to have featured fast Internet access and an adjustable flat-panel display. Public response was mixed. Letters published on Monday in one of Microsoft's hometown newspapers, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, questioned the hygiene of sharing a keyboard in a public toilet and whether the iLoo was real.

"Knowing Microsoft, though, it probably won't be perfected until Version 2.0," the newspaper commented. After Microsoft said on Monday that the project was a hoax, Reuters issued a retraction of its story published last week. "Don't tell me they're trying to flush the story down," said Russ Cooper, a computer security expert and longtime Microsoft gadfly.

"The only worse thing they could have done with this PR debacle was to have officially announced that the iLoo was going to run 'Bob' -- the failed operating system that went down the toilet." Microsoft, meanwhile, said its focus now was "to ensure that this type of confusion doesn't happen again."

"Our top priority right now is making sure that a couple of misstatements from yesterday are corrected," Gurry said.

© Reuters