Veteran vulture Andrew Orlowski is offski after 19 years at The Register

Bill Clinton was president of the United States when I first started at The Register, mobile phones (and anything else "mobile") were low-rez monochrome chunks of plastic, and politicians were slack-jawed children when it came to technology. Some things don't change, but today one thing does. After 19 years – the first seven …

[chivo243]

Everyone has their time

Time to stay and enjoy the company, time to leave and look for new adventures. Everyone has their time!

Best Wishes!

[}{amis}{]

Good Luck And have fun

Thank you for helping to make El Reg one of the brightest lights in tech journalism.

[Victor Ludorum]

Where did the time go?

19 years? Are you sure? Shurely shome mishtake?

Seriously though, many thanks for all of your insightful scribblings. May you continue your perspicacious verbosity in your future ventures, whatever and wherever they may be.

[m0rt]

Who will fly the Blackberry flag now??

I'll have to do it myself in the comments....

Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish!

[TheRealRoland]

Re: Who will fly the Blackberry flag now??

Will be there, shoulder to shoulder.

[Chris G]

I have disagreed with your opinions on a few occasions but you were always worth reading.

!9 years anywhere, even El Reg is long enough and time for new things.

Good luck in the future!

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

You will be missed ...

by the many many people who have depended on you for their daily or weekly dose of being annoyed about something

and of course by those who have enjoyed your articles (the intersection of these groups is non-empty, I gather from the above).

I'll buy you a pint if ever we should meet

[Tom 7]

Moving on and up?

Are you going to be a Condor now?

[Down not across]

So long and thanks for all the articles

As few have said, I have thoroughly enjoyed your articles whether I agreed with you or not. Disagreement is a good thing anyway, there is much more to talk about and to learn if we don't all just agree.

I wish you the best on your endeavours, and hey you could always become a commentard.

I'd also like to thank for reminding me of some of Sarah's best lines. It hasn't been same here without the Moderatrix.

[Alister]

Very sad day.

Like others, I didn't always agree with you, but you always provoked thought and comment, and that's what a journalist should do.

Best of luck for the future.

[tfewster]

Mr Orlowski

Strongly opinionated, often at odds with the zeitgeist, but essential reading on the "why" of tech news rather than just the what. You owe me several keyboards, but you will be missed. My best wishes sir.

[A Nonny Moose]

Phone reviews

I hope you'll be leaving directions to the Post Box and fruit market for whoever will be taking over the phone reviews, otherwise we'll have nothing to compare the cameras with

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: Phone reviews

I'd just come on here to say that. In fact I was even considering creating a sock-puppet account called something like Andrew Orlowski's Postbox in order to complain about him going.

How will the poor thing ever get attention now?*

I've found myself agreeing with Andrew O far more times than I've disagreed, so I've defended him in the comments a few times from the raging mobs. For example, he was one of the early voices being rather rude about Google, when most of the media had their tongues so far up the Google collective arsehole that they could clean their Google Glasses for them...

Although I'm pretty sure that Andrew is also the one to blame for me buying a Windows phone. Well 2 in fact. He was very clear about both the upsides and downsides of the system, and I'm still a happy Win Phone 8.1 user - still haven't bothered to upgrade to 10, also on his original recommendation.

Andrew, you are the Cassandra of mobile phone OSes. Or is that the Jonah? Your Blackberry (and lesser) Windows Phone love have entirely failed to keep them at the top. Which is a shame.

I hope post-Reg life treats you well, and fills your life with pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows. Or beer. Or whatever...

Cheers!

*And by that I obviously meant the said post box, not Andrew O himself. Heaven forfend!

[Andrew Orlowski's Postbox]

Re: Phone reviews

How will the poor thing ever get attention now?

I have plenty of other projects on the go thank you very much

[Andrew Orlowski's Ethopian Fruit Bowl]

Re: Phone reviews

Nice to see you here Postbox, but what about me?

[Spoobistle]

BBC2?

Talking Pictures Tv (81 on Freeview) much better for B&W films! Don't waste your time on BBC2, rapidly turning into a mushy lifestyle pap channel.

[Peter Prof Fox]

Champion

A knowledgeable journalist looks at news from the side. Reporters follow on behind. Opinionated fill-spaces whine like mosquitoes with no direction. Good luck.

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Re: Champion

I notice you didn't attribute any of those roles to Mr Orlowski :P

[Anonymous Coward]

End of an institution

...okay, not really - but think of the pathos!

Okay, seriously now: thank you for all your hard work, Andrew. The Register wouldn't have been the same without you, and while this has already been mentioned in several other comments let me be yet another one to state that while I have on many occasions disagreed with the points you have made in your articles, they have generally (the polite way would be to say "always" but we all make mistakes at times) been well written and I have enjoyed reading them.

Good luck in your future endavours!

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: End of an institution

Broadmoor is also an institution...

[STOP_FORTH]

This is not good enough

Who is going to take photos of that letterbox now?

[STOP_FORTH]

Re: This is not good enough

Sorry, meant pillar-box.

[STOP_FORTH]

Re: This is not good enough

I'd like to apologise for repeating someone else's jokey comment. Not visible to me when I wrote this because of moderation buffering. Sorry.

[amanfromMars 1]

Once KGB, always KGB:-)

Here's to greener pastures, AO. And thanks for the all the understandings.

[Kane]

"...and politicians were slack-jawed children when it came to technology."

They still are, Andrew.

Good luck, and all the best for the future!

[Flicker]

Au revoir to the world's only other Windows Phone enthusiast! El Reg will be the poorer for your departure, but life moves on. Good luck and best wishes for wherever your writing takes you...

[hopkinse]

errr I'm still using my 6 year old nokia 1020 WP8.1 :-P

[Andrew Moore]

So long...

Thanks for the graft and good luck with whatever comes next.

[Anonymous Coward]

All the best, enjoyed many of your articles and also disagreed with some but on the whole that's what journalism is supposed to be, if I wanted to agree with every article I'd have a lobotomy and start reading the daily mail.

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

I'd have a lobotomy and start reading the daily mail

I understand that the latter provides the former in any case. I'll get my lab coat.

[Brewster's Angle Grinder]

One less reason to check El Reg. *sigh*

[TaabuTheCat]

OK, I'll admit

You had an usual way with words Andrew - and not always in way I could understand. Many times I'd have to read a paragraph or two more than once to figure out what it is you were saying, but nonetheless, it's this diversity of style that makes a place like The Reg unique. Hope whomever follows you will have the same passion you brought to your stories, and will be just as inclined to kick the hornet's nest on a regular basis (copyright anyone??). Good luck!

[Dan 55]

Official Register Contrarian

Are there plans to announce the successor for this most illustrious of posts? The commentariat need to know!

In my self-centered view may I say that my workplace time-wasting will be far less satisfactory than it has been over these past 20 years. I also hope this does not start a brain drain at El Reg which will see the likes of Verity Stob also leaving for for pastures new.

[Kubla Cant]

Sad day for us; great day for you

Best of luck, Andrew.

And although I'm eight years too late, I nearly bust something when I read about the Mystique school of Javascript development, where coders are forbidden from ever checking the return value of a function.

[Alexander J. Martin]

It was a pleasure working with Andrew

Andrew is a great journalist. As all my fellow commenters are very aware, he's a fiercely independent thinker, often contrary, but never aggressiv.e. And very funny. He's easily among the best company in a newsroom or pub you could wish for. It was a great pleasure to work with him during my stint at El Reg.

Best of luck to you to in the future mate.

[Martin Summers]

Best of luck Andrew. I've been reading this site for about the same amount of time as your tenure and never understood why people got themselves so worked up about what you wrote. You've been kind enough to reply back to me about my crap news tips a few times which has been a nice touch.

I'd completely forgotten about the Moderatrix. Still actually someone we'd love to have back I'm sure.

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Ta ta!

As many others have said, haven't always agreed with your articles but I've always appreciated that you wrote what *you* believed in. Don't think you deserved all of the stick you got in the comments, but I reckon most of it was akin to good-natured banter between brothers - a bit like the time mine shot me in the arse at point blank range with an air pistol - oh how he laughed!

(I see you've taken the sensible precaution of turning on moderation for this article)

Anyways,

John F Kennedy once said that if he hadn't had sexual intercourse by midday, he'd get a splitting headache. Writing is like that for me a bit – I get itchy.

Most people get itchy from too much, not too little, but to each their own :)

Fare thee well, and best of luck for your next indentured servitude to the huddled masses.

(That's me wiping away the single tear that just leaked from my ocular apparatus) ->>

[Alister]

Re: Ta ta!

(That's me wiping away the single tear that just leaked from my ocular apparatus) ->>

Somehow I'd never pictured you as quite so blonde, but then, that's the internet for you...

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

Re: Ta ta!

It's my weekend look, I finished work early this week.

[fran 2]

So long, and thanks for all the articles

[Anonymous Coward]

Best of luck and thanks for the great humour

Chris

[ukgnome]

You might of caused a few comment storms (when we was allowed to comment on your articles)

You might even be missed, then again us IT lot are not renowned for our throwing arms.

But above all else you will never dance to this kind of tune

Now get out!

[Sir Runcible Spoon]

*were

[Stuclark]

Somebody say NO

Andrew was one of the reasons I started (kept) reading elReg - I remember well(ish) those days and evenings at the variously titled Symbian... / Nokia.. / "OMG, Apple just launched a bloody phone" expos and shindigs - the AAS story (which I believe I quoted you in) about which vendor gave away the best mints - the endless WTF related to Sendo & Microsoft - then your brilliant writing in the ensuing years.

I've always tended to pay more attention to a Reg article if it had Mr. Orlowski's or the late and sorely missed Mr. Haines' names under the headline - what am I going to do now... read everything???? *Geez*!

[Fred Flintstone]

Cheerio

All the best, Andrew, and ve vil meet again (possibly in a few weeks, actually).

Cheers!

[EvilGardenGnome]

Cheers

There's much to be said about someone who speaks their mind. There is more to be said for those that actually think about it first.

Can't say I've always agreed with you, but I've always been able to see your reason and point. That, sir, deserves more than a few tips of the elbow.

Sláinte.

[sandman]

Best of luck - it's been fun! :-)

[Big_Boomer]

Damnit!! After BOFH yours were my favourite articles. A chance to read someone else's disillusioned views on this particular frame of reality. Yes, you will be missed. If you are writing books or larger pieces, make sure to get El Reg to mention them so I can get a copy. I would follow, but I don't do Twatter and LinkedIn seems to be turning into just another data mining exercise. All the best and Keep On Snarking

[Mike Moyle]

Ave atque vale

Thank you for the informative, entertaining and, occasionally, irritating articles, sir. They, and you, will be missed.

Best wishes.

[Jude Bradley]

Enjoyed your articles since I started reading reg in the last century. Best of luck in your new venture, whatever that may be.