Though I’ve travelled a lot on my own dime and previous employers have occasionally sent me on business trips, CSR are the first to send me to visit the offices of companies they’ve acquired. I’ve made it something of a habit to try to pick up some kind of memorabilia while visiting these acquisitions. I’ve made it another habit to fail badly in this task.

A look around the IS office in Cambridge will show you several people wearing SiRF hoodies or using a SiRF USB mouse. When I visited SiRF in October I asked if there was any swag I could take home with me, only to be told that if there were any it would be in the San José office. Perhaps I’d have better luck in Shanghai.

The Shanghai office had been through two acquisitions in quick succession. CSR acquired SiRF before the dust had settled on SiRF’s acquisition of Centrality. Surely I’d be able to drum up a T-shirt or something.

Nope. The local IS guys informed me that there was absolutely nothing available. Then, seeing the look of abject disappointment on my face, sloped off to prove themselves right. In fact they did come back with two polo shirts. One was a CSR shirt (great) and I’d already got one. The other was more promising, a light blue number with SiRF Family Day 2008. emblazoned on it. The only problem was that it was size XXL, far too big for me to ever actually wear. I took it and eventually traded it for some Spanish biscuits back in Cambridge.

Maybe next time.