Mobile Eastern conflict?

It's always frustrating when you find a company putting its PR out to tender and you know you've got oodles of relevant experience but you work for one of its competitors. What can you do? Just let it go...look out for less competitive opportunities, I guess.

Or, of course, you could try and win it and covince both companies that your Chinese Walls and separate account teams will keep everything all above board and hunky dory.

Palm has been seeing agencies of late; in fact it's fairly well advanced in its pitch process. For the few that don't know, Palm make handheld devices - PDAs, Smartphones, that sort of thing - that allow you to access email on the move and a whole lot else. It's quite a lot like what Microsoft's Mobile division does...as members of the account team at Weber Shandwick would be able to tell you, as they do its PR. They'd also like to do Palm's PR, and have been in to see them a few times over recent weeks, we're told.

Of course, we understand that Microsoft and Palm are really partners - a handful of Palm's devices run Microsoft's mobile operating system - but don't believe for a minute they are not trying their very best to nick business off each other. It's co-opetition at its most competitive. They'll need to have pretty think Chinese Walls down Gray's Inn Road way.

Still, we're sure it can be managed - Palm and Microsoft aren't really that competitive after all. It's not like they're trying to manage Oracle's PR out of the same building, is it? Is it....?