The chief executive of Autonomy Mike Lynch has called on the British government to sort out its "crazy" and "parochial" immigration policy.

Speaking to delegates at the Commonwealth Technology Forum Lynch said the UK's IT economy would be damaged unless the best and brightest people could be recruited.

He said the age of regional competition was over. Lynch said: "I don't believe in regional competition. Technology is always about co-operation. In the modern tech environment you need to be able to open up to the brightest and the best", according to silicon.com here.

Lynch also told the audience in Kensington that improvements in storage technology mean that within a few years people will be able to store an entire life on a disk drive. Lynch believes it will be possible to store telephone quality audio and still photos taken every few seconds on one disk drive within about four years. He also dismissed the proposed European software patent directive as a very bad idea.®

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