Slashdot Mirror
Is "Marketingspeak" Killing Technology?
An anonymous reader writes "In this essay titled, inevitably, "SUNset?" an analogy is drawn between the car industry in Detroit, which failed in the 70s because the execs looked out their windows and saw nothing but American cars and so missed completely the threat from Japanese companies, and Sun Microsystems. "Sun is going to fail in this decade if it does nothing but send out surveys to customers asking them to validate marketing phrases of Sun's creation," says the author. He adds: "If you are someone who never gets tired of hearing 'proven,' 'best-of-breed,' 'cost-effective,' or 'taking the surprise out of business solutions,' then contact Sun and demand as much of their current marketing material as they can muster." But it isn't just Sun, surely. This is a failing of technology marketeers in general. Hmm, doubtless we can all come up with our own examples far equally awful as these from Sun. Who can come up with worse?"
the creation of incoherent language was the first technology. its been downhill since then.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Who can come up with worse?
This thread is quickly going to be "That's nothing. This one time..."
Free XBox, PS2
Are these signs of a mature industry which is in need of a disruptive change in the market to shake it up?
Will never understand Technology.
I find in every place I've worked that Marketing and Technology NEVER can agree on anything, so why should Sun be any different?
Currently I am proactively generating a synergistic environment where I can bring to fruition a new paradigm in answering questions of this nature.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
That's unpossible!
Sun has been on a downward slide for a while. This article is too little to late.
is that this is the only time I want to see the word "synchronicity" being used.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
People might find handy the equation posted in this comment.
I've been reaching for the bleeding edge of technology for so long, my fingers really hurt now...
We have a finely tuned bullshitometer here: My wife. She is so synical and sick and tired of the horsedung put out by marketers nowadays that I'm pretty conifident if I can get past her.
"It's not stealing if you don't get caught!"
So, I go into this store, and I ask about such TVs, and all the sales droids yammer on about Sony with "ColorStream!"
WTF is ColorStream? Does that mean component video inputs, i.e. YPbPr that support 720P and 1080i inputs? "No," sales droid says, "ColorStream" gives you a better picture.
It was only by requesting the manual for the set in which I was interested, that I could verify that ColorStream meant YPbPr. And even then, I had do refer to the specification summary page.
I'm sure that many lost sales happen because some sales doofus doesn't know that the product they're flogging actually meets the customer's needs perfectly!
You could've hired me.
Isn't Sun already irrelevant? I mean, unless you are working for the goverment (and are also stuck with Unisys, TI, etc.), who the hell installs a NEW Sun system these days?
--from earlier today.
The Statue of Liberty is America's lawn jockey.
"Sun is going to fail in this decade if ...."
Uh.... didn't Sun fail last decade??
Shouldn't marketing be commoditizied and outsourced live American workers were? I mean, what's so special about glossy brochures with models and focus groups?
It's jargon and buzzwords and nothing more. All companies do that. Nobody buys products based on that. Any company looking at sun will look past the "marketingspeak" and look at the product.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
Any technology pitch with the words "solution", "rich", or "exciting" and I automatically check to see if my pocket has been picked. "Rich" - now that's rich!
sPh
Come on, people have been hawking "scalable enterprise empowerment" or "veritcally integrated open groupware" or "user-centric frameworks for collaboration" for a decade.
First, run the "BS Detector" (www.streettech.com/bs) over your website to check for marketing-speak. Then deploy and action these tips:
Convert your online visitors into customers by inviting them to act. Every page should have a clear call to action to get your visitors to take the next step.
Cut to the chase. People scan web pages, they don't read them, and they read at least 30% slower off the screen than off paper. Use active verbs rather than passive ones. It saves words and is more persuasive.
Note all the bolded text in the snippet above. Is this an inside joke? Look at all the BS in those sentences!
Un-news
Honestly, this one wasn't even worth jumping to a readable slashdot.org domain...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
IMHO, I think the best IT marketers have to be cut from the cloth of a computer nerd.
Because every great killer app does not begin in the mind of a creative marketer or exec, but in some small script or some small app that some hacker/nerd put together to take care of something he immediately needed.
Think about. Every single useful app, I bet, has its ancestry hidden in the roots of some hacker who did it for free.
This doesn't mean all computer nerds make good marketers, but that computer nerds do have the vision to see new openings for products and features. The market can only complain about today, but it really cannot tell you what it will need tomorrow.
Philosophistry
http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/GuidePageSer
... is that I'd have to shift my focus to read this article, because it doesn't follow the thinking paradigm I have dedicated on following. Perhaps if it focused more on a strong framework of ideas in a cost-effective solution, I would be more adept to consider it.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
cheers and be sure to mod this entry down :-)
If you don't learn from history,
then you are an idiot by definition.
--- Vadim Yasinovsky
The market delivers what customers want.
My theory is that the problem, if there is one, is that MBAs are making too many of the technical decisions. (I.e. "Which mail server should we use? Why, Exchange, of course!")
As long as the real customer is a non-technical person, technological products will be marketed this way.
-Peter
That as I read this article and post this message, I am innundated with ads from SUN which give my business the "REAL-TIME ADVANTAGE"!
Its advertising, folks. Its designed to sell. Until the thechies start making the calls regarding tech purchaces, Marketspeak is here to stay.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
...you're already blown the sale.
I imagine filtering out that word alone can keep you out of a lot of trouble when it comes to buying IT software/services.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
As far as I can tell, "Industry Leading" just means "has a marketing department." (Ditto for "Market Leading").
"Industry Standard" doesn't actually mean what it says, either. These days it just means "We think lots of people do things this way, or at least claim that we think that."
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
This has been around for a while (since 2000 I think), but I still get a laugh out of it:
Catbert's Mission statement generator
Perfect for this thread!
The latest turn in the computer science industry is a new development process called "Market Programming."
Software Wars
Firefox - Rediscover the web.
Thunderbird - Reclaim your inbox.
Is it me or are these weak slogans?
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
We extend world-class partnerships at the same time as we seize customized platforms and target bricks-and-clicks e-business. While facilitating cutting-edge channels, we intend to matrix out-of-the-box architectures and synergize 24/7 platforms. Ultimately, this will redefine strategic deliverables, optimize robust convergence, and syndicate extensible metrics. In short, we will squander your investment.
could you imagine a Beowulf cluster of thinkers like this in Soviet Russia - where the industry changes you?
Yea, I know, I should have just shut up and modded the parent post as funny. It will be interesting to watch though, the parent smacks of a funny post that is in danger of being modded insightful.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Is mission critical. It's a seriously overused, and tragically misunderstood phrase.
Here's a good working definition of "mission critical". If you'd be willing to hang upside down out of a 10 story window by a rope that gets cut if your software crashes, then it's mission critical. If not, then it isn't. Be sure and ask your salesperson if they'd be willing to undergo this test to prove their software's mission critical reliability.
Hardware and software where people's lives are on the line are mission critical. Think Apollo missions and nuclear power plants, folks. Anything else, isn't.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Their mag is remarkably slimmer than it was in the early 90's.
I guess you can only run the headlines "Fastest Desktop Ever" and "Fastest Laptop Ever" for so many years before people start ignoring you.[1]
[1] Yeah yeah, I know the net killed a large portion of their ad revenue.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
Talking to your existing customers works fine in a static market. You can still win even if the technology is changing but the customers remain the same. "The Innovator's Dilemma" pulls a lot of material from a large study of the disk drive industry. Incumbent players stayed in business through radical changes in technology, dying only from changes in the market.
Changes in the market happen when a "disruptive" technology comes along. "Disruptive" doesn't mean you have to rip out your assembly line: the disk drive makers succeeded at that several times. "Disruptive" means something that redefines the market.
The personal computer is a clear example. Like other disruptive technologies it was cheaper than what was already there, sold to a different set of customers, and wasn't as good (*at first*) as the incumbent technology. DEC's customers continued using VAXen to do work that wouldn't fit on the first personal computers.
Then the new customers buy in volume, mass production drives down the price, high volume pays for improvements, and before you can say "386" the disruptive technology is undermining the old technology. Companies like DEC wind up selling "proven" solutions to a shrinking customer base. Eventually they die.
"Marketing", in its highest and most useful form, involves getting into the heads of your customers and understanding what they need before they know it themselves. But the future lies with people who are not your customers.
The book listed other examples including hydraulic earth-moving equipment, but the principle was the same.
The best thing that could happen to Sun is for IBM to buy them. It would IBM give them access to Java, they could merge Solaris, AIX and Linux, and Sun hardware would probably sell better than the equivalents in the IBM line.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
http://www.refreshsoftware.com/whitepaper_core_con tent_mgt
they even used the word "paradigm" !
7 120917901
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/2004090
I mean, just look at those numbers!
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
The job of a marketing department is to control the marketing. They can't be the reason for technology lagging. Technology will lag when those responsible for it stop improving it. Marketing will still try to hype the technology even if it is faltering and that's their job.
-N
I've nothing to say here...
Is it value-added?
A goal is a dream with a deadline
As a geek, and unable to understand "business-esse" AND looking for a job in the mid to late 90's, AND (most importantly) on a dare, I used one of the "BS Generators" to fluff up my "objective" on my resume. To my shagrin - it worked! I got more pegs/emails/phone calls on that particular resume than I ever have - previous or after. I truly think the "businessey-type" people really DO believe their own BS - and the "Mission Statements".
Folks, it isn't the technology field that invented this junk. For years corporations have been spewing the same buzzword-riddled crud. My best example is the church I attend. It's a good church, but the mission statement and vision were written during a time when almost all the church members worked for a certain very large and prominent corporation that is in the area. Although I agree with the basic goals of both documents, it literally makes me ill to read them because they contain the famous 1980's buzzwords like "empowering." In my mind, both the mission statement and vision should have stuck to plain, straightforward language. But I guess it should come as no surprise. The people writing them would have naturally written them in the same way they had been trained at work.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
I love that commercial. I forget who made that commercial, but it encompasses everything we hate about jackass tech marketers/sales reps.
-Randy
Can I say BULLSHIT
[blue] - The Ministry of Information approved this message...
I think we can all benefit from a good game of
Bull Sh*t Bingo
A two stories below this one, the following gem lies:
Privately funded in 1993, now with customers in 40 countries* and over $67 million** in cash reserves, the company experienced a phenomenal growth and continues to aggressively pursue new frontiers in order to meet or exceed the needs of most demanding customers by providing a scalable, seamless, comprehensive offering.
Leveraging our paradigm-shifting product line with state of the art technology developed by a dedicated team of professionals, we offer a significant competitive advantage on the diversified but fragmented market of best of breed anti-spam solutions.
How about just saying; "Our stuff sucks less and will hopefully make things run better for you. If it doesn't then we need to talk, so we can figure out the problem and fix it. Either way, we will stand behind our product, that's a guarantee!"
The truth of the matter is, in 95% of cases customer (or, better yet, prospective customer) doesn't know what he really wants. And even if he thinks he knows his expectations are often unrealistic and in direct contradiction with other customer's requirements.
Anyone who worked in the industry knows this.
What a coincidince; I was just plugging a BS-o-meter earlier today.
Named "Bullfighter" from Deloitte & Touch, it is an add-in for MSword and PowerPoint. You can download the regular version or a for the nonprofit sector.
-theGreater Picador.
People keep looking for a cause for the problems with IT which is generally taken as a synonym for technology. But there is no cause to discover because it's not that something has happened, it is more that something happened and now it is over and what is being sought as a cause is actually nothing but an absence.
The absence, in turn, is nothing but the end of grand business opportunity that was akin to the development of the high volume press at the end of the nineteenth century --the CMOS process. And, the observant will note that in fact CMOS literally is a form of printing so this analogy is quite intriguing.
The whole Moore's law thing was more of a business law than anything else and now it is winding down after an incredible run. That's the cause of almost all the problems in IT and the technology that IT serves as a proxy for. It's hardly mysterious where the problems come from, but knowing the cause does not suggest any solution.
Does anyone thing IT decision makers are actually influnced by any of this?
It's a complete ruse.
This type of advertisement is targeted directly at investors.
It is not inteded to nor should it be judged on its effect on actual technology customers.
Do you thing GE advertizes jet engines to increase jet engine sales?
You can mod me down, but you cannot call me a coward.
Was anyone else's first thought: "Isn't this how .Net got created?"
Just Curious.
Marketers will say whatever people are buying. The real problem is people who don't parse the marketspeak for the info they need, and demand high signal/noise ratios. Part of the problem is making mere marketers into decisionmakers, telling engineers what to buy, and what to build. It's a symptom of the American sales culture, which infects all of us. We're better at selling things to people, like our labor time, than we are at delivering the goods. So the higher-paid decisionmaking jobs are filled with people better able to pitch themselves, rather than better able to make the decisions. The solution is more critical thinking taught in elementary school, where we can learn to intercept marketspeak as well as produce it.
--
make install -not war
...when a company I once worked for offered "time-compressed solutions".
I guess "we do it fast" just wasn't classy enough.
Judging by the calls I get in the Solution Center that start with "I'm installing 10 (or 15 or 30) Sun machines and I have a question about the following . . . . ."
yes, I'm AC, but I AM in the Sun Solution Center and I can tell you that companies are still buying Sun Servers and in numbers greater than one.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/facts /default.mspx
"It is what IT is."
Oh! And don't forget the Bullshit Generator.
I keep watching these keynotes and speeches particularily by Bill Gates from Microsoft. I can't tell you how many times I have heard the words "innovate" and "really cool".
Leverage, LeveragingI ns )
Fruitiono llaboration
Synergies, Synergistic
Vulnerability
Attack Vector
Streamline
Deployment
Interactive
Buy-
Stakeholders
Key-Stone
Enterprise
Solution(
Robust
Intuitive
Scalable
Granular Level
Key Performance Indicators
Seamless
Comprehensive offering
meet or exceed
cash reserves
phenomenal growth
Turn-key
Paradigm-Shift, shifting
Product Line
State of the art technology
dedicated team of professionals
significant competitive advantage
diversified
fragmented market
best of breed
win-win situation
Synchronicity
Proven
Cost-Effective
Environment
Proactive (ly)
New Frontiers
Agressive
Empowerment
Vertically integrated
Groupware
User-Centric
Framework
C
You can't put a complaint in at the Land Rover site but you can put in a Compliment. If you send them an email, they promise to respond in 48 hours but the last time I did it, it took more than a week and then they only responded to tell me I had to call Customer Service.
Reminds me of one of my favorite sites. http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html Very useful.
Deciding if marketing-speak is BS based on buzzword matching/frequency counting is just sinking to their level. It's as devoid of semantics and real thought as buzzword matching to do hiring. After all, there's always a marketing/engineering disconnect, so this will likely tell you zilch about the technology.
If you want to evaluate a technology, evaluate the technology -- ignore all of the marketing. Be empirical. Actually play with the technology. If they won't let you get your hands on it, then be suspicious.
Responding to the original post, that's right if you define "maturity" for an industry to mean "the point at which a significant fraction of those involved don't understand what they're saying and just pass along marketspeak like neurons in a big brain processing signals."
Worst "Marketingspeak" ever!
Marketing Speak is the SYMPTOM of the problem. The problem is much deeper. It is an indication that the industry has stopped using NEW ideas to create better products, or new products never seen before. It is a sign of a Mature Market.
How can you decide between the $9.95 mouse and the $11.95 one? Buzzwords and Marketing Technobabble.
Or as one of my professors pointed out. When he asked his wife why she like one Fridge over another, she replied that she like the Handle. Everything else was the same in her mind.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Here I am working in a marketing department and reading about how slashdot readers hate me. Well I'm striving to give my "kind" a better reputation by continuously reading /. and lowering my productivity greatly.
How can we blame American coporations for being out of touch with their customers (ie, Sun, etc) when the Commander and Chief himself has been long out of touch.
Seems to me there is a lack of leadership in America these days.
As markets mature (think bubbly sugar water, clothing, etc) the marketing/branding become more important and the "advanced" technology simply _isn't_.
Sure, they're still getting cheaper and better; but this all represents manufacturing improvements in the same way that clothing gets cheaper and better.
Coke and Abercrombe have more to offer the computer industry than tech geeks do these days.
Far equally awful? The Japanese and Sun Microsystems teaming up against the auto execs? Maybe there's a reason the marketers rewrite your documentation.
Marketingspeak was invented by people who aren't productive and don't understand technology but survive by staying one step ahead of management types with tehcnical-sounding bullshit.
The same kind of people call themselves "IT experts" because they wouldn't last 5 seconds as an Engineer.
If you want to make a company more efficient instantly, fire all the people in that category.
> But it isn't just Sun, surely.
There's dumb marketing everywhere.
But Sun could have the best marketing on the planet and still not be selling their products (hardware and OS), which have been largely commoditized. Yes, they have high-end servers...but years ago, cheaper Intel/AMD boxes weren't considered "server-class" hardware like they are now.
There is a larger issue: Sun's ability to "pull an IBM" and figure out how to leverage the changing software/hardware world instead of defending their market share.
but that statement doesn't make any sense.
Quoted from the GNAA, not linked to so I can avoid being modded down.
"GNAA leverages core skillsets and world-class team synergy through sodomy to provide clients worldwide with robust, scalable, modern turnkey implementations of flexible, personalized, cutting-edge Internet-enabled e-business application product suite e-solution architectures that accelerate response to customer and real-world market demands and reliably adapt to evolving technology needs, seamlessly and efficiently integrating and synchronizing with their existing legacy infrastructure, enhancing the e-readiness capabilities of their e-commerce production environments across the enterprise while giving them a critical competitive advantage and taking them to the next level."
This guy is way out there
If you want to be a techie geek this decade, look to one of those fields, not software.
The best thing that could happen to Sun is for them to go under and IBM buy the assets. The last thing the industry is for the same people that ruined Sun to ruin IBM as well.
I don't have a worse example, because, quite frankly, I've stopped listening to techno-speak.
No, really. When a salesman can't tell me in plain English what a technical term means, I simply don't buy. It's that simple. I've got a degree in the field, and I could care less what buzzword is attached to it; giving a new name to an indexed filesystem, as if it was the be-all-end-all of filesystems doesn't make you look smart, but rather, profoundly ignorant of the fact that IBM was doing the same thing on mainframes 40 years ago.
And the natural consequence of this is that I buy far more technology from the small independent resellers than from the national chains. I've spent at least twice as much on technology in small computer shops than anywhere else.
Funny thing is, I like being treated like a human.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Technology will never understand Marketing. The two are different concepts with different goals. Marketing's goal is to attract the people who spend the money and make the big overall decisions to their technology. Technology's goal is to explain itself to the people who have to implement it.
Unfortunately, many technology leaders think Marketing is just cunning language and empty promises. So when they make a terribly useful technology, they fail to explain it and instead spin a picture of what it COULD be.
It is not just companies, either. Take a look at the product pages on Apache.org and see how long it takes to figure out exactly what a technology does, what platforms it works on, what language it works with and how to connect to it. Some of them are good. Most of the time, this information vital to deciding whether the technology is useful or not is hidden three or four links in, and occasionally it's not there at all. I mean, what the fuck is this? (rhetorical question, don't answer). Furthermore, the names of the projects are apocryphal and completely undescriptive. "Do we use Cocoon or Veocity for this project?" Who knows.
Technology is massively complicated. Just think of the question "What is Linux?" The term is used simulateously, by different people, to refer to a Kernel, to refer to a set of development tools, to refer to a GUI, to refer to a development philosophy, etc. Marketing's job is to boil off the variables you don't need to make a purchasing decision, and spice up the biggest advantages. If marketing isn't doing that, if all they're doing is making insane promises or coming up with wierd names, fire your marketing department. They're wasting your money.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Try sys-con media properties themselves..
They claim the lead in insisting that becuase a large readership includes large free magazine giveaways to devloerps is some how mkaing them the i-technology leader magazine..NOT!!!!
Don't Tread on OpenSource
this should have been rejected. what the fuck is this guy trying to say with his incoherent fluff that wraps the MLP?
you need a lession in english 101, pal.
Sun will prosper as long as they continue to offer manageable and scalable solutions for today's changing business environment.
I give you: BullShit Bingo!!
I'm not anti-social, I'm anti-idiot.
they want their tired AP references back.
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
Buzzwords are one thing, but for a real well done and visbale example of where marketthink can go look at the whole CultOfApple.
They have packaged a lifestyle complete with image, fashion, ethics and a psuedo faith based foundation to hang it all on.
Like all cults the true koolaid drinker is trained to respond to questions of thier faith. Try talking to a true apple beliver about the built in tithe system to apple via jacking up costs etc, shoddy hardware that fails , abandonment of legacy systems just a few years out in the wild....
Now of course I realize this is going to get the jackboot of the CultOfApple as soon as I postit, but this only helps hammer home the point.
Scientology, Jews For Jesus, Moonies, CultOfApple...
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
It should be noted that open source projects aren't immune to this either. For example, consider this blurb taken from the Postnuke documentation:Um, sure. Great. But what does it do? Notepad and vi manage content. FTP manages content. Alongside the paragraph above is a cute little picture that says "PostNuke's system brings together content and users effectively". So does an old-fashioned cork-covered bulletin board.
Open source authors - when people come to your site, they're asking three questions:
If your web site isn't answering these questions clearly, you're losing users, authors, contributors and community.
This isn't the fault of technology marketers. It's the fault of technologists.
Technology marketing at its best involves telling stories about technology to customers. It's as simple as that. Every time a technologist turns up his nose at a marketer, it makes it more difficult to tell that story. Even if you accept the fact that "engineers! are not good! at communicating! with customers!!!" it's still a fact that in the absence of input from engineers, marketers will be forced to fall back on meaningless cliches in their stories about what you build.
So you know where I'm coming from, I'm a developer-slash-marketer working for a Silicon Valley company you've heard of -- I spend part of my time writing code examples for developers and another (small) chunk of my time writing and editing marketing copy.
Breaking down the barriers between the geeks and the suits is something I've gotten very good at in the last few years. And here's a hint for geeks -- the suits are generally intimidated by you, which means it's your job to reach out to them and make them feel valued.
What Sun lacks is good marketing (maybe b/c of a lack of good strategy and new technologies).
Marketing is about creating awareness and a favorable first impression. It is only when the marketing message is consistent with the technology that it is powerful. Case in point: Apple's "Switch" campaing did a great job creating the impresion that with OS X, your average user could switch painlessly. I did and it was painless. That's good marketing. My experience has been that some of the brightest designers have a difficult time articulating WHAT something does without inserting too much of HOW it does it.
(Marketing Manager and hobby programmer)
What did it say?
Just look at Solaris 10 (a big upgrade from Solaris 8 and 9) and the coming Niagara systems (32-way on a single chip and system board--thousands of threads and terabytes of RAM in a rack). Also, the SunOS kernel is nothing to laugh at. Java will always be debated, but it is fundamentally useful.
I've always had the impression that Sun does make mistakes, but they can stomach the lessons from them. For example, I'd hope that the limited market for MAJC (a dual core CPU) has at least given them a running start for UltraSPARC IV and Niagara. Some people say that IBM beat Sun to dual core with POWER, but Sun did have one--just not UltraSPARC.
The problem with the auto industry in the 1970s and 1980s is that they just produced utter stinking crap. I wonder if auto engineers from that period could have engineered their way out of an open box, looking at the terrible emissions controls (god-awful cobwebs of vacuum hoses and unreliable EGR values and carburetors from hell among other things) and the poor performance and economy of their cars. They put 90HP four-cylinder engines into 4000lb. SUVs back then...that's how terrible they were.
Really, the only thing I worry about regarding Sun is that no one is willing to pay top dollar for a battle-tank-like workstation (SPARCstations, early Ultras), so Sun has inevitably gone to less expensive cases that aren't built from riveted heavy gauge steel. Otherwise, their hardware is generally very good and Solaris is quite good, and ever year they do make real progress. I'm already debating if I want Solaris 10 at home.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
I thought I felt a paradigm shift, but it was just my underwear riding up my ass.
Hermes: We're jerked! Nothing can stop a monster that big!
Farnsworth: Nothing except and even equally big monster.
Last post!
I cant for the life of me remember what that internet P2P browsing system was called. I remember that it was some american university. I've googled and searched Slashdot but I am suffering total aphasia (sic?)
The idea was that by appending a certain domain to your url you could browse a site via distributed p2p rather than hitting the box directly, like for instance
www.fearofslashdoteffect.com.xx.yy
Check out my PHP Url Validator
... it comes down to people seeing what other people have gotten, and wanting to get it too.
The marketing words matter a whole lot less than marketing people think. Marketing teaches you to "sell the benefit, not the feature", but the spiel ends up turning benefits into features because cliched "benefit" phrases become impersonal corporate-speak meaningless nouns in the minds of the listeners.
-- Barry Kelly
... then you've already lost your job.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
The American car industry looked out their windows and saw nothing but American cars, sure. But they didn't lose their monopoly because of marketing, they lost their monopoly because American cars sucked and other countries eventually learned to make them better.
:-)
I don't care if you fill the air with marketing speak, as long as your product works. American software companies have long been in danger of losing to the Indian and German software industries for the same reason our automotive industries began losing ground, and we're standing here arguing about whether marketing people should use marketing words.
Maybe it'll all be moot when Open Source eats everyone's lunch, borders be damned. Start selling services, or die
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Wait. So a journal hawking one of the most over-hyped ideas of this new century, in an article where you get about 1% of the available page space to actually read the text of the essay (the rest is all advertisments and bad page design), claims that Sun is going to fail because its relying too much on marketing and hype? Pot. Kettle. Black.
Sun probably won't 'fail'. After all, the 'big three' auto makers are *still* here.
Further, to invalidate the primary assertion, just look at Java as an example. Note that virtually *ALL* the things about Java that Sun touted as reasons to use it, are 100% false - its not even backwards compatible with itself. Its a technical failiure, but it was literally marketed into existance. Examples of computer companies saturating a market with overt lies to get a product accepted are too painfully plentiful.
The chief differences between the auto market and the computer market is abstraction, and the basic nature of competition. You can drive a car and pretty much decide you don't like it, and then buy a different make of vehicle, with virtually no expense resulting from changing manufacturers. Neither is true in the computer market.
I give you M$ Crack Monkey Steve Ballmer yelling "Developers Developers DEVELOPERS!!! "
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
This reminds me of a Seinfeld episode where Jerry makes fun of GM and Cadillac's 'NorhtStar' engine! He comments to George (or is it Elaine) 'It has the NorthStar engine. Chrysler is currently running a commercial where a man, holding his toddler son, opens the hood of his SUV, points to the engine and says to his son 'Hemi'.
This is exactly what "mission critical" means. Critical to your mission. Whatever mission that may be.
The outside world may think your mission important or unimportant. But the right criteria is, "If this royally screws up, are we all going to wind up out of a paycheck?" If the answer is, "Yes", then it is mission critical.
For instance over half of small companies that experience catastrophic database failure (they lose their database and cannot recover from backups) go bankrupt within 6 months. Therefore small companies should view their databases as mission critical. Whether you're selling hair products or doing brain surgery.
Tell me the actual dimensions, dammit!
'nuff said
My fav.. broadband.. used to describe... less narrow band than before. And "Push"... we all know you do not push anything thru a pipe.. you suck it through. But then my company is guilty of MarketSpeak.. we have developed a killer little desktop alert/rss reader app and marketing refused to let me say.. "Our Reader really sucks!" http://www.theport.com
Nope, marketingspeak is not killing technology. The liers who work as salesmen and marketing agents kill technology by building up false impressions of what is technologically possible.
Simple as that.
Frankly, I don't see a bright future for Sun. They won't be making money on Solaris thanks to Linux. They lost out the app server market to IBM, WebLogic and JBoss. Low cost clusters, especially in the database world, are obviating the need for expensive multiprocessor machines. The Java Desktop has potential, but seems too little to late. IBM will buy them one of these days when their price gets low enough.
Never pet a burning dog.
That's a pretty easy marketing phrase; and it is the very one that made Microsoft rich.
Back in the good ol' days when most small to medium size networks ran Netware file servers - Windows NT was just a blip on the radar. How did MS take all that marketshare from Novell?
I remember deploying windows 95 and 98 for my clients and liking the fact that there was ALREADY a novell client built into windows. The fact that it worked better than Novell's client on occassion didn't suck either.
Before you know it, windows is everywhere, and people are slowly replacing Netware with NT. It just worked with windows better.
Sun could learn a lesson here. Maybe replacing windows on the desktop is still a monsterous task - but replacing a file server isn't. Maybe if SUN offered a drop in replacement for windows 2000/2003 server I would consider it. Run solaris 10, or Linux on it - I don't care, but make it be a drop in replacement. Active Directory, Remote storage, replication----blah blah blah...the works. On the outside it looks like a windows server, on the inside (where it counts) it's not.
A drop in replacement that reproduces all the functionality, with none of the drawbacks of windows would be great.
And the market would pay for that.
-ted
This might sound like a stretch, but trust me - it's all just bullstuff out of my pet peeve file. Do with it what you will.
I can't stand it when people describe servers/networks/hardware as "rock solid". Simply hearing someone use the words sends up a little red flag in my head to watch out for two things:
1) The server/network/etc... (or others like it) have been problematic.
2) It's working now, but the tech/engineer/whatever doesn't really know what was wrong with it, but you are afraid to admit it because you don't take criticism well.
Have you ever heard anyone describe a radio as "rock solid"? No, you haven't. Why? Because that kind of hyperbole is unnecessary with radios.
It's like marketing people who refer to everything as 'product' instead of what it really is, as though abstracting the "product" of professional baseball away from being a game makes it easier to sell tickets to fans.
Personally, I don't think lawyers are the problem. Nobody has removed more humanity from my "life experience" that the marketroids. I wish them ALL into the cornfield!
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Bullshit stinks, and people smell it.
http://www.cluetrain.org/#manifesto
I used to sell Sun back in the mid-90's and I believe their problems run much deeper than just the language. In fact, I re-read Goldratt's "The Goal" and "It's Not Luck" occasionally, and Sun is one of the first companies that comes to mind for the the examples of things they DIDN'T/DONT do. Calling Scott McNealy "fiscally conservative" is an understatement. During the mid- 90's the local Sun office was devastated by workforce reductions and obsessive focussing on "headcount". Tech help was scarce, and morale was as low as I've seen in an office for a high-quality product. They moved from a well-organized top-floor office to a mediocre government-looking office across the street. You can only cut cost so far. You could cut costs to zero, and then where do you go to improve proitability? Sun never made it easy. The manuals were good for techs (although the first editions of some of the Solaris 6 and NIS manuals had major errors in them), the classes were great, but the customer focus was fuzzy and confused, just as the article said. And God help any unsuspecting IT manager who thought he could just load Solaris as easy as loading Windows! My impression was that the frustrations over the complex installation and administration process were major avoidable pitfalls in the Sun marketing plan. Luckily, I was mostly selling against NT 3.51 and had a major performance advantage at the time. The problem is, loading, configuring and administering Solaris is still a tedious, joyless task, even if it's done over a network. Troubleshooting administrative problems is not as easy as it could be, and the docs still suck.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
That a Sun Solaris add should pop-up when I want to read the replys to this story.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
"Share and Enjoy". (douglas adams)
I have a friend whose company was bidding on a contract. Part of the forms they had to fill out was their company's mission statement. Well, since they didn't have a mission statement, and since it was a *required* field on the form, he went to Dilbert.com and fetched one of these lovely (*cough*) mission statements.
They got the contract, in part because the client thought they had a good mission statement. (Needless to say, they never told the client where they came up with it.)
And what you didn't remember to add, to make this even better:
Granted, the whole site is bullshit, seeing that it's a US territory, not an "Uninhabited Sovereign Territory" like it says. But I still think the marketing BS oughta be kept funny :)
I wish I could write clever and witty sigs.
The basic problem is that marketing is charged with explaining a technology to non-technologists. Often these technologies are quite difficult to explain. For example, how do you explain an identity management system to a CFO?
Now, the knee-jerk slashdot reaction is to say that the CFO has no business making technology decisions. It is his business, however, to determine what the company is spending money on. Is this identity management system some IT toy? Or is it something that will make the company more profitable?
You need to be able to explain technology to non-technologists in order for good technologies to sell, especially when those technologies are expensive.
Buzzwords evolve when someone develops a way of expressing something that actually means something. Then others latch on to those words and dilute the strength of their meaning. Over time, people forget what the original meaning even was.
Paradigm is a real world with a real meaning. In terms of describing technology, however, it has lost all semblance of meaning because it is now used to mean anything. Once upon a time, however...
How many lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb?
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
v
Such number as may be deemed necessary to perform the stated task in a timely and efficient manner within the bounds and prescriptions of the following agreement: Whereas the party of the first part, also known as "Lawyer," and the party of the second part, also known as "Light Bulb," do hereby and forthwith agree to a transaction wherein the Light Bulb shall be removed from the current position as a result of failure to perform previously agreed upon duties, i.e., the lighting, elucidation, and otherwise illumination of the area ranging from the front (north) door, through the entry way, terminating at an area just inside the primary living area, demarcated by the beginning of the carpet, any spill-over illumination being at the option of the Light Bulb and not required by the aforementioned agreement between the parties. The removal transaction shall include, but not be limited to, the following steps:
The Lawyer shall, with or without elevation at his option, by means of a chair, step stool, ladder or any other means of elevation, grasp the Light Bulb and rotate the Light Bulb in a counter-clockwise direction, said direction being non-negotiable. Grasping and rotation of the Light Bulb shall be undertaken by the Lawyer with every possible caution by the Lawyer to maintain the structural integrity of the Light Bulb, notwithstanding any failure of the Light Bulb to perform the aforementioned customary and agreed upon duties. The foregoing notwithstanding, however, both parties stipulate that structural failure of the Light Bulb may be incidental to the aforementioned failure to perform and in such case the Lawyer shall be held blameless for such structural failure insofar as this agreement is concerned so long as the non-negotiable directional codicil (counter-clockwise) is observed by the Lawyer throughout.
Upon reaching a point where the Light Bulb becomes separated from the party of the third part ("Receptacle"), the Lawyer shall have the option of disposing of the Light Bulb in a manner consistent with all applicable state, local and federal statutes.
Once separation and disposal have been achieved, the Lawyer shall have the option of beginning installation of the party of the fourth part ("New Light Bulb"). This installation shall occur in a manner consistent with the reverse of the procedures described in step one of this self-same document, being careful to note that the rotation should occur in a clockwise direction, said direction also being non-negotiable.
NOTE: The above described steps may be performed, at the option of the Lawyer, by said party, by his heirs and assigns, or by any and all persons authorized by him to do so, the objective being to produce a level of illumination in the immediate vicinity of the aforementioned front (north) door consistent with maximization of ingress and revenue for any party of the fifth part.
Sun should adopt a new OS. Adopt something like MacOS X, a proven, easy to use, powerful operating system that you don't have to be an IT geek to use. Apps could easily be ported to work with it, M$ could (would, maybe?) even port Office to it easily enough. Or, find something else. Make your SUN machines easy to use. Sell them at a store. Get CompUSA on board or something. FIGURE SOMETHING OUT OR DIE. Make your computers easily network-able. If your computers play with other computers nicely, you might be able to sell something to more than special companies that need special hardware.
Dammmmnnn... this writer could be the next Eminem!
"When dot-com became dot-bomb, Sun was shown to have no aplomb."
No more Dom for Tom with the ROM? Shake a pom-pom at the prom? Word to your mom?
im-not-so-humble-o, it is rather our giri to trot out the better, as opposed to marketing tripe worse than those fine examples already cited, so as to provide the opportunity for educating the m-drones in productive (that is to say, rational and preferably internally consistent) thought construction. Perhaps "buy our stuff because we're hungry" will not attract many, but some (as P.T. Barnum would remind us), and at least it would qualify as honest, thus having a built-in and fairly rare hook.
Cheers,
RobN
"If...you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning" - Catherine Aird
For those having problems with some of these terms I recommend the Software engineer glossary of product terminology.
Nils
I know DB2 isn't what most of the slashdot readership would consider technology. But bear with me.
The IBM marketers have so mangled the DB2 trademark that you can't even call IBM and order a flavour of the product or ask for service.
Don't beleive me? Log onto the IBM website and find the SQL manual for DB2 Universal Database for the mainframe. Make sure it's the mainframe manual. Then find out how many flavours of DB2 Universal Database Connect there are and try to distinguish them from each other.
Using Google is cheating. (But, even using Google I bet you're driven crazy within the hour!)
The technology behind DB2 isn't that difficult to understand. But the marketing maze is truly something byzantine.
Calvin: I like to verb words.
Hobbes: What?
Calvin: I take nouns and adjectives and use them as verbs. Remember when "access" was a thing? Now, it's something you do. It got verbed. Verbing weirds language.
Hobbes: Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding.
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
Linux: Its not just for servers and ultra geeks anymore. Linux: Yesterday's software technology on todays hardware. The Linux desktop: Its really not as bad as it seems. Really.
In an essay titled, tediously, "Crashdot?", an anonymous reader wonders how long the popular technology discussion forum Slashdot can survive in the face of its editors' blatant ignorance of grammatical errors that a child of 5 would find embarrassing. "Slashdot is going to fail this year if it does nothing but post duplicated articles, week-old news and obvious trolls", says the author. He adds: "If you are someone who never gets tired of misplaced apostrophes, mixed tenses, and generally incomprehensible prose, then subscribe to Slashdot and read as many of their article summaries as you can stomach." But it isn't just Slashdot, surely. This is a failing of online journalism in general. Hmm, doubtless we can all come up with our own examples far equally awful as those seen on Slashdot. Who can come up with worse?
marketingspeak nonsens word is "over" as in "over 40 billion served"
Now, when you have served over 40 billion, I can understand saying "over 40 billion served" and just leave it at that.
But when you have 17 of something, and you say "over 15..." that's just stupid. So now when a company says "over" followed by a number, they've instantly lost credibility with me.
Now there's a good one. Sun stole that line from Apollo computer. Apollo actually lived up the phrase. Anyone familiar with Domain/OS knows that the entire OS was built from day one with networking in mind.
Apollo had great engineering, but terrible marketing. Sun understood that low price and good developer support would lead to success. Apollo, like so many great technology companies, believed that superior products would win. Instead, most popular and/or cheapest usually wins.
It is sad to see NFS continues to be so widely used despite it's blatant design flaws. In contrast to MS networking, it actually looks good, but in reality, it is a nightmare. Anyone who has fought in the "Automounter Wars" can attest to that!
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
Usually when leverage is used as a verb you can be sure the hype machine has been hard at work. For some reason I see it used in that way describing software, specifically medical software, far more than I see it anywhere else.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
C.G. Jung coined the term synchronicity in his works. That may be another context where usage of the word is okay.
while (!asleep()) sheep++
Kinda reminds me of Contemporary Cargo Cultsessay.
Julius Caesar - Act I, Scene i: "What mean'st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow!"
The word that you are so desperately looking for is "important".
That's precisely it, AC. Bingo.
To the other folks who responded, it's not that I don't understand your plight. Yes, it sucks when your software crashes. You lose money. And I do know, because I did a few years of IT work to put myself through college. It sure seems critical when your machine craps out.
But just because it's important, doesn't qualify it as mission (or safety) critical.
To put it another way, it's like how today's advertising is facinated with the word extreme. You see it all over advertising these days. Extreme this, extreme that. Extreme sports. Extreme deodorant protection. Extreme snack food.
And now, whenever you see the word extreme, your eyes edit it out. No useful information there, because everything is extreme. It's as effective as the word "the". No additional info is given. Anymore, people think that if you have an extreme reaction to penicillin, if you ingest some it'll make you go skateboarding.
And it's the same with mission critical. It means something, something other than what the marketing guys are pushing. It's becoming a watered down phrase. After all, why wouldn't you buy a mission critical database server? Nobody likes crashes, do they? Why buy a db server that's merely reliable?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
That's not too bad. I mean, the last 3 words actually tell you what they sell...
I've hated that one for years. "We're a solutions provider." Really? Well your "solution" has "provided" me with more downtime then uptime, dork! No body makes anything...they're "solutions providers." I say anytime you're at a convention and someone tells you they provide "solutions" it should be code for "pop me in the mouth." Hell, let's make it a game!
If only I could remember the fancy technology that was being used by a vaccuum I saw in a commercial. Imagine this:
This Hoover uses our patented new SuprSuk technology to pull out all the dirt from your carpet!
We can't forget to make new works by misspelling existing words and sticking them together and calling it a technology or equally impressive sounding.
www.sys-con.com isn't looking up for me. You'd think that with 4 DNS servers on their domain record, one would work.
Calvin: I like to verb words.
Hobbes: What?
Clavin: I take nouns and adjectives and use them as verbs. Remember when 'access' was a thing? Now it's something to do. It got verbed. Verbing weirds language.
Hobbes: Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding.
Alas, I made the move out of development to the Dark Side of Marketing (I actually typed "Darl" Side, when I first wrote this - must be a freudian slip) about four years ago because it looked easy and fun (all those freebies and lunches). I hate it. I'm moving back as soon as I possibly can...
This sig is in Spanish when you're not looking....
Read the sig.
Breakfast served all day!
not everybody got it ;)
A goal is a dream with a deadline
I think that the problem, to the extent that a problem exists, is due more to marketing itself than to any particular lingo that marketing types use.
The point of marketing is to sell as much of a given thing as possible. It doesn't really matter what the thing is or how it works so long as you can beat your competition with it and make a bunch of money. To a marketer of hammers, there are very few customer problems that don't look like nails. Worse, it's advantageous to a marketer to sell a general solution to some idealized version of a problem instead of learning about individual clients and addressing their needs.
Our economy has realized huge productivity gains by generalizing problems and providing standard solutions. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it can lead to products which are difficult to use or which don't solve a given version of a problem particularly well. When companies like Sun fail to see the disparity between their solution and their customers' problems, they leave themselves open attack by competitors.
If Sun is going to improve its business and make itself more competitive, it should follow IBM's lead and eshew Microsoft. IBM makes a healthy living by providing decent tools as well as consulting and customizing services which help a client apply those tools. Microsoft, on the other hand, thinks that customers should work the way their tools let them, and not the other way around. To MS, we're all nails.
For the linguistically challenged, this is what all that means:
As a creative person, I'd like to sell them my language services, which
include the following:
* Use words in unusual ways.
* Tell the workers to work together as a team.
* Confuse the audience as they struggle to understand what is being said.
* Convince your competitors to do this stuff too.
* Give little actual information.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
See this page. They used to have this sign on their front page that said something like "Productivity is a place, we'll take you there." *eyeroll*
Just in case anyone was looking for it, the Dilbert mission statement generator is here:
m s2.cgi
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/career/bin/
These sys-con web pages are not standards compliant:
W3 validator
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
...then don't bother. They won't get it.
Yeah, right.
Who can come up with worse?
A Win/Win Proposition for Leveraging Strategic Slashdot Synergies
It is a well-known fact that at the current point in time unprecedented opportunities for leveraging win/win strategies arise through emergent social-dynamics synergies heralding revolutionary technology breakthroughs in world-wide media applications.
This post presents to the Slashdot community a proposal for an exciting new roadmap that delineates a win/win strategy integrating unique potentials for reaping the benefits of emergent synergistic effects arising from a major paradigm shift in focus group dynamics and from leveraging cost/benefit appraisals in the resulting market-share contribution matrix.
I think we can all agree that innovative win/win strategies to facilitate the on-going paradigm shifts in market model convergence scenario implementations spearheding cutting-edge technology utilization are paramount to the success of a comprehensive assessment of the emergent Slashdot win/win market penetration focus group convergence synergy potential.
This revolutionary proposal comprises a visionary win/win scenario for leveraging factors that consume all resources, in other words, resource hogs. The new strategy implements enhanced information flows wherein the resultant rise in information flow constitutes a major asset in the win/win strategy for enhancing countermeasures against this particular type of resource-consuming factor, in that the resultant friction will wash them away.
This unique win/win/win scenario comprises state-of-the-art paradigm shifts in community-building strategies for leveraging burgeoning cutting-edge visions of innovative synergized implementation models that underscore the win/win/win/win potentials of a comprehensive market-share focus to facilitate the sustainable spearheading of integrated emergent convergence-orientated industry exposures utilizing win/win/win/win/win propositions for heralding the introduction of unprecedented new win/win/win/win/win/win technology cost/benefit appraisals in order to enhance your browsing experience.
(If you read this post carefully, you'll notice that if you remove the bullshit, what remains is hogwash. Literally.)
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
is when they come up with a new marketing buzzword and then don't give you any way to connect with it. Take Throughput Computing for example. Lots of processors for multithreading. That's cool, I'm into that. But I'm far more likely to see that on an Intel processors than anything from Sun. Unique hardware? No. Unique software? No. By unique I mean can you do anything that you can't do more cost effectively on non Sun hardware and software? And the answer is no.
This Experienced Executive Management Consultant has:
I couldn't figure it out, so I thought Babelfish could help:
Ahhh, so this connector-communicator is really just a "lawyer with politics, with the strategy of penetration"... a politically-connected horny lawyer? In any event, he could work for you!
Full text available at BrettBerlin.com. Please post translations to this forum. Thanks.
There is a huge problem with people working in a technological company who have no interest in or knowledge of technology. Not only do they feel pressured to lie when they don't know what they are doing, they can't always detect when they are lying. They become robot liars representing their company.
This kind of thing affects more than the technology industry. It's only natural that people who work in companies that pretend to be sane would vote for a president who pretends to be sane.
--
Bush: Spending money the U.S. doesn't have to make himself look good.
... it is why Java has as many followers as they are, and also why they are so vehement - they bought into this kind of speak and now they have to defend that, because god forbid they would learn something new.
Yeah, yeah, just mod on. But as you do, at least be honest enough with yourself to think back to those times. Go on. I dare you.
CATBERT HAS ESTIMATED YOUR WORTH
JOB TITLE: Unix Administrator
REGION: Midwest
SALARY $48,250 - $69,250
NOTE: This salary is your total compensation. It consists of $100 in cash and $48,150 - $69,150 in office supplies we expect you'll pilfer.
They should send out billions of Free Star Office CD's.
Learn About Outsourcing. http://www.pioutsource.com
At work, we've decided that, since finding out one of our HP tech reps BS'ed us about a particular system feature, the marketing term "Adaptive Enterprise" translates to "we'll tell you what we want to, depending on your budget, our backlog, and Carly's latest memo".
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
#include I'm sick of getting marketing material that uses cliche terms such as "high availability" or "scalability" or "connectivity". It's all starting to read out like a damned Dr.Seuss book! It's all overpaid, overeducated marketing people who think they are I.T gods because they can fire up solitaire in Windows XP. What happened to the good old days when "high availability" was said "it just fucking works". Why use stupid catch phrases learned at Harvard bussiness school to describe simple concepts. "Total Cost Overall"...christ sakes...just say..."it's cheap". I run the I.T department for the company I work for. Not sure about most people, but who in god's name walks into their bosses office and says "Boss...it has high availability"? Like he cares..."it works surfices". Kill the overpaid, overeducated marketing people with a self-esteem complex!
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/20/1 322253
Yes, there are some who fall for these silly styles, but most of us want a computer that "just works." If we want style, we'll hang a painting on the wall, not purchase an overpriced and soon obsolete computer.
Note too that Apple does far better in the laptop market where styling is subordinated to practicality. There, Apple listens to the public and gives it what it wants.
--Mike Perry, Inkling blog , Seattle
You have company that is providing great new cool products but when they break no one wants to help you. Check this out you'll see what I mean.. dude had 8 freaking iPods and Apple offered him a free set of head phones for his troubles. THats some serious crap, you Apple lovers are sooo lame. Serious read it - email him too! I sent an email for him to apply telling them what a crock of crap they put him through. http://www.geocites.com/ipodhell
Surf...Skate...Snow - Nuff Said! Http://www.hulioboards.com
is that you?
Compu-Global Hyper Mega Net!!
Change your name to Homer Junior! Your friends can call you Hoju
Awesome.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
where was this motherfucker when i applied to graduate school!!!?!?!?!
IBM on the other hand, is very customer oriented. They've been doing process since before process was cool, and the'll bend over backwards for anyone offering them a suitcase of cash to get something done. They know what their customers want, and they have a lot of people working on that stuff so that they can retain their customers. A lot of cool stuff does actually get done at IBM, but that's an accidental side effect of the process of helping the customers. If the customers just wanted solutions written in Visual Basic, that's all IBM would be doing.
Now here's the problem (for Sun.) If I'm an CTO looking to lay out my company's plan for the next 5 years looking to get some big iron, I'll be looking at a lot of factors, not just the price of the hardware or how "cool" the technology is. Turns out Sun's one playable card that might interest me would be Java, and IBM does Java at least as well as Sun does. And IBM has a lot more capability to deliver solutions that I need. So why should I go with Sun?
SGI was in this position a few years back, and look what happened to them. I don't want to see Sun go, but given the current situation, I don't really see how it can be avoided. I think the best they can hope for at this point is to get bought out by someone before they go completely belly-up.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Marketing-speak from marketers can be annoying, but it's also easy to dismiss. It is, after all, their job.
Much worse is when your company hires a new manager for you that talks that way.
In a perfect world, the response would be clear...
But no, we have to go along with this nonsense, where civil disobedience can be nothing more than pointedly avoiding cliches, trying to use proper spelling & diction, and especially not verbing perfectly innocent nouns like "round-table".
The English language is a beautiful thing. I'm going to miss it when it's gone...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
"Political Price Fixing" - CrashCodes
They simply need to enable efficient e-markets while cultivating proactive solutions. Surely that would help to aggregate frictionless technologies. First match on Google for 'bullshit'.
A buddy and I got tired of seeing "X" used in so many places with different meanings. Pedestrian X-ing ActiveX X-mas Xmit (transmit) XDock (cross-dock) XML X-Box The full list eludes me at the moment, but the point is we started prounouncing the X's all the same regardless of the word. So from now on we say: Pedestrian Christ-ing Active Christ Christ-mas (pronounce Christ instead of Cris) Christ-mit Christ-dock Christ ML Christ Box Enjoy, CrashCodes
I was going to post this but he got to it first. Normally GNAA stuff is unworthy of Slashdot, but that is fucking hilarious! If you don't believe him, go to GNAA's website and read it for yourself.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
I'm sorry, didn't know where to post this.
Read this:
http://www.cluetrain.com/apocalypso.html [cluetrain manifesto]
-- aa
Dude, one time I was on the ferry going across to Vancouver Island, and they had this sign by the cafeteria that said "We have plenty of alternate dining solutions to fit your needs", or something along those lines. Alternate "solutions" like what, pancakes? Maybe a grilled cheese sandwich in there? I mean, we're on some budget-ass barely-running ferry. We're not at the Olive Garden. Jeez...
My friend and I of course proceeded to make references to "alternate dining solutions" for the rest of our trip..
If the surgery goes badly enough, you're more likely to have been upset about the text messages.
Dick Cheney whispering into his ear
"Microsoft has made computing accessible to a population who would otherwise not be able to use computers" - B. Kernigha
(let me see if I can do this correctly without my laptop screwing up on me). ... Dick Cheney!
"Dick told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did..." - GWB
"I believe Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld has called us into action. Our country has got a responsibility, we are a great nation, we are a wealthy nation, we have a responsibility to help a neighbour in need, a brother and sister in crisis." -GWB
"Microsoft has made computing accessible to a population who would otherwise not be able to use computers" - B. Kernigha
I think it means that they do not offer dial-up service.
Thoughts on tech, Software Engineering, and stuff
Maybe you went about it the wrong way. The store I used to work at built custom computers. Rather than saying - well, if you want to do this... you need this; and if you want to do this other thing, get this - we'd ask them what they wanted to do with the comp and then make a recommendation for system specs. Most people don't care, say, what size hard drive they have as long as they can do what they want. They key is finding out what they want. And while most folks don't understand the technology enough to say what _equipment_ they need, they can usually express what it is they expect the equipment to do. Building custom machines definitely helped though - it meant we didn't have the problem of having semi-distinct systems that people had to choose from.
~ Leilah
It's insane to spend money we don't have.
If you don't like the word insane, what word would you apply to it?
Name one US representitive or congressman who does not belong to either of the judeo christian religions. There are more muslims in this country then jews and yet not one muslim congress critter. There are probably more atheists then either one of those religions and yet nobody in congress will admit to being one.
evil is as evil does
G UNIT
PIMP
STYLE
Old purchasing saying: "ASAP describes the person who says it."
Redundant?
Where else is a link posted to that site?
More proof that the moderation system is majorly fucked up the arse.