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Comment by vldx | Hacker News Reader

Interestingly, WPP mandates all it's employees to shut down their computers – irrespective of the OS.

> As a precaution, WPP is mandating that everyone immediately shut down all computers, both Macs and PCs. This applies to you whether you are in the office or elsewhere. Working on an office computer remotely is not an option. Please leave your computers turned off until you hear from us again.

> Many thanks for your co-operation and patience.

> Best regards,

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How do they plan on contacting the employees en masse if the computer is off?

Probably via their smart phones

> Interestingly, WPP mandates all it's employees to shut down their computers – irrespective of the OS.

Smart (-ass?) employees will also turn off their smartphones...

Is it common to have a list of every employee's mobile phone? I would guess a lot of firms just have informal lists of phone numbers held by managers and colleagues.

Plus if there was a list, wouldn't it be on a computer that's currently off?

Most managers would have their reports' mobile numbers. Just start with the C-suite and work down. This is a case of hierarchy actually being an advantage...

In large corporations yes (For emergency procedures etc). Definitely, if most staff have a work phone (for email).

I think this means contacting them via email on their mobile phones.

So a smartphone is not a computer anymore? The world we live in..

I think is a matter of semantics, not of functionality. A smartphone is a computer per design, but no one is calling it like that.

My calculator's a computer, but I don't call it that. My game systems are all computers, but I don't call them that either (and never have, unless I was discussing semantics).

It may be, but it is not in hardware or software lated to the major "desktop" platforms. And they are by design far more locked down than your average laptop or desktop (just wish said locked state didn't leave the OEM so much in control).

A smartphone is not a computer any more than your electric toothbrush, which happens to have a CPU and Bluetooth for whatever reason, is a computer.

In this context "computer" means "desktop computer" or "laptop computer".

its a colloquialism

computer = desktop\laptop

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