Two train stories, and then I’ll leave you in peace.

Firstly, I was surprised to see my laptop hooked up to a wireless network on the Virgin train from Birmingham to London last week. I investigated further, and found that this was the promised trial of their wi-fi service. It wasn’t yet available, but there was an e-mail address to register my interest. And register I did. Only to, er, find that the e-mail address didn’t exist. Still some work to do there, methinks.

Story two isn’t mine, but from a fellow passenger. Apparently, his friend was on a Virgin service just the other week where the service was exceptional. I quite like Virgin Trains anyway, but nonetheless the reason for the exceptional service soon became clear: Mr Branson was on board. Now if I can get a copy of his itinerary, I’ll get the next train he’s on. Bet my e-mail wouldn’t bounce then!

You can invest thousands in your security infrastructure, put in multiple hardware and software solutions, and plan your company’s data protection to the nth degree.

But you can never fully legislate for human beings.

My daily life at the moment involves several hours a day on a train. And on those trains sit umpteen people with laptops branded with company security stamps and bright start-up screens championing some of Britain’s best known corporates. But it’s not quite that I want to focus on. Nor is it the ongoing slideshow of Powerpoint presentations – half of which are no doubt utterly confidential, yet still on display to the entirety of Coach C – or the idle chatter between co-workers that leaves those surrounding them in little doubt as to their feelings on the businesses that pay their wage.

It’s what’s going to happen to all of this when widespread Internet access is rolled out across many of the UK’s busiest train lines.

An acquaintance of mine regularly travels via GNER, and he’s already documented on his own site a telephone conversation a Government member was loudly having on his mobile phone, which, thanks to the on-board Internet access, was transcribed and e-mailed elsewhere even before said Government member left the train. Granted, this is possible already with other communication methodology, but it’s about to become a whole lot more convenient and easy to do.

Companies, rightly, when faced with security threats, more often than not take appropriate protective steps. But the marriage of train-based conversations, laptops laden with confidential materials and fast Internet access could undo all of that work with surprising speed.

For the record, and if you’re looking, mine is, naturally, the desktop screen that currently reads ‘I love my job, it’s the best ever, please don’t sack me’. So let that be the end of that.

The principle of communication on the move is great. The principle that technology can enable us to keep in touch with people where previously we couldn’t is great. Put them together, and in theory, that’s great. But before this becomes the shortest, and least interesting blog entry in the world (and let’s face it, it still stands a good chance of ticking one of those boxes), let’s look at the fly in the ointment. Simple human greed. The kind of human greed that invites you to taste some beverages brewed by an American coffee giant with a convenient wi-fi sign in the window, only to take a fiver off you before you can get anywhere near online. Or what about a hotel, that’s damaged your credit card anyway just to be able to step into a room. Why is it only smaller hotels that have caught onto the fact that free wi-fi access - which, let’s face it, doesn’t cost them much to provide, is a real selling point to the business professional? Throw in the consideration that their late night mucky movies tend to be cheaper (according to my friend, obviously), and it’s a surprise that many people venture further than these smaller, friendlier establishments. There’s real profit to be made from mobile communications, and I’ve no quarrel with that. Business is business, and that’s fair enough. But instead of using the likes of wi-fi access as a means to screw a few extra quid out of passing trade, why not -bundle it in with a package of features, and treat it as a real selling point rather than further grease for the credit card machine?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been round a few small businesses, and one educational institution. Predictably, the range of operating systems running in these differing places was reasonably diverse, not least because at least one office I was in achieved a Windows full house in having 95, 98, 2000, Me and XP running across their seven machines.

This, naturally, made me curious. The office in question belongs to a fairly computer savvy company, and they’ve always sought to make the most of their technology. So why not unify their operating systems?

I expected them to come back with a story of upgrade difficulty, and that was partly the case. There was also a strong argument that the setup they had suited them fine - only two machines needed Internet access, and so only two machines had it. Yet the reason they’ve not upgraded is cost, or more accurately, value. When I pushed them on this, they argued what value they would get from upgrading to the latest version? They could - at a push - manage the cost of buying in the new software, and upgrading the necessary computers. They could even carry the downtime involved. But they couldn’t get past the question ‘why should we?’/

The other places I’ve been round were similar in their thinking. Nobody has bothered to communicate with them in any meaningful way as to the advantages of an OS upgrade, and while most of them were aware of scare stories of withdrawing support, they took sensible precautions and had made a choice that until they saw a compelling reason to upgrade, they wouldn’t.

It’s an interesting conundrum Microsoft face. Clearly they’ve done some job in the past, given the sizeable number of small businesses happily working away with earlier iterations of Windows and Office. But how on earth are they going to position Vista as the must-have OS? Given the billions that small businesses pump into IT, it’’s a huge market, but it’s near-impossible to sell a £100+ software upgrade for the purposes of typing nicer letters and e-mails.

With the carrot gone, the stick will inevitably again be wielded, and Microsoft inevitably has to sell their OS as much off the back of fear of security as they do new features where the SoHo market is concerned.

Yet their more immediate concern is perhaps this. The small businesses I spoke to? Two thirds hadn’t even heard of Vista, yet alone earmarked any funds for it. It’s going to be some challenge ahead…