"Thank you, Martin. And thank you," William said, sweeping the audience with a heartfelt smile. "I've always been envious of you guys out here in California. I look out there and all I see are T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers."
There was some mild laughter, and William knew the crowd was probably a little thrown off by his being up here and not Matthew Locke. He went right into his presentation.
"Maybe it's this kind of environment in which you work at Wallaby that lets you create products as spectacular as the Joey computer."
On the screen an older picture of the original Joey team appeared, a younger Peter Jones kneeling in the center of the group, his arms wrapped around a Joey poised on his knee. The audience applauded with pride and appreciation.
"A few months ago, your company and ICP joined forces to work together to offer our customers powerful hybrid systems. On that day a dream came true for me. Finally, users of ICP's line of computers had an easy way to access our difficult operating systems, actually working smarter because of the Joey. Now, that's a big deal to us starched shirts at ICP," he confided, "because we've been playing catch-up with Wallaby, trying to figure out how to build portable computers and personal information assistant software as great as the Joey.
"You see, the truth is is I've always been envious of the Joey and Wallaby. Jealous that we, the biggies, hadn't been the one to invent an equally breakthrough design."
It was time for him to pull his prank, which he hoped would act as the perfect segue to the real announcement. Pulling off his tie, he stepped away from the podium and strolled to center stage.
A strip-tease song started playing on the big speakers throughout the auditorium, and the audience was mute with wonder as William began unbuttoning his shirt. Next he unzipped his pants, and dropped them to the floor. Underneath, he wore faded jeans. He pulled off his shirt and flung it aside. He raised his arms, and turned around so the audience could see the graphic on his back. It showed the joey kangaroo as always, but this time the pocket it climbed out of was embroidered with the ICP logo.
The audience applauded and cheered as he sauntered back to the podium.
"Oh, wait a minute, I forgot something," he said, then crouched behind the podium. A moment later his black wingtip shoes clunked hollowly out onto the stage, and he produced a pair of worn-out sneakers. Encouraged by cheers and laughter, he fumbled comically with the running shoes and laced them up.