MSI repells reporter with armed response team

You - off that booth. Now.

By Tony Smith in Berlin • Get more from this author

29th August 2008 10:43 GMT

IFA Go here for an update to this story.

Technology company MSI resorted to overwhelming force - well, one armed, shaven-headed security goon - to curtail a casual visit to its IFA booth by a Register Hardware reporter.

MSI at IFA: keep your filthy hands off my netbook

And all we wanted to do was ask about the Wind netbook's battery life.

We didn't get to put out questions - we'd barely stepped onto the stand when a couple of suits barked at us in German to get the heck off it, while the company's paramilitaries steered us back onto the show floor.

Is that a gun in your pocket or are... oh, it is a gun

Alas, our German wasn't up to enquiring about the nature of the heightened circumstances that warranted such a show of force - or to ask under what conditions the guards would feel it to deploy their hefty sidearms.

Worried about punters seeking out six-cell power packs, perhaps...