Slashdot Mirror
The Press Releases of the Damned
Harry writes "Once upon a time, Microsoft said that Windows Vista would transform life as we knew it. Palm said its Foleo was a breakthrough. Circuit City said firing its most experienced salespeople would save the company. And Apple said that Web apps were all that iPhone owners needed. I've collected the original press releases for these and other ill-fated tech announcements, and annotated them with the facts as they played out in the real world."
The stupid "article" is spread over 8 pages. Slashdot should have some standards for posted articles... and no, I'm not new here.
Duke Nukem Forever to be released Q4 2009.
Microsoft said that Windows Vista would transform life as we knew it.
to a living hell!
...that irrespective of the situation, press releases are never going to say "this sucks" or "this is completely unoriginal". A few of these are genuine oversights/lack of forward thinking (e.g. the iPhone app one) but the majority of them are standard marketing hyperbole that appears everywhere ("This cleaning product will TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE!").
8 pages and no printer friendly version (that I can find)? This is why /.ers don't RTFA!
Are the flacks who write these sorts of releases embittered mercenaries who know they are puking shit into the public consciousness but just don't give a fuck, or are they bright eyed eternal optimists who actually think in PR language and sincerely believe each release as they write it(before, of course, believing something entirely different to write the next one)?
You'd think when people used screenshots of something they threw together in a word processor they'd at least turn off auto-spell check underlining so it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb.
That's why I'm running low on coasters AOL stopped sending them out in 2006 :)
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Sony ditching their AI and other cutting-edge 'out there' research (like the Qrio and Aibo) to focus on media/entertainment. Sony Labs used to feel like one of those wicked Zaibatsus as described in Neuromancer.
It happened shortly after they took on an American board member, incidentally.
HP did much the same under Carly.
ATT's Bell Labs, too.
I hope Research in Motion's Perimeter Institute takes off. These corporate research labs are where we get all the best stuff!
I used to write press releases myself in my younger days and often times you're stuck in a very difficult position of having to spin something that's very negative into something that at least doesn't make a bad situation even worse. Let's face it, there are only two reasons that companies ever lay off employees en mass: a budget cut that makes it unavoidable, or an attempt to streamline by removing an entire redundant or poorly-performing area or division. Private sector companies are loathe to admit the former, and so they almost always couch a large layoff as the latter.
They do this because they know that, if they show weakness, their stock will tank and they'll have even MORE layoffs than they've already had. And laying off people is never easy to do. Despite the reputation that corporations have for being heartless, they are nonetheless made up of real human beings--very few of whom take any pleasure in having to throw their employees' lives into chaos (not to mention the real damage it does to the company itself and its projects).
Of course, sometimes the stock still tanks anyway (savvy investors are rarely fulled by mere spin), but to publicly announce "Hey, we're going into the shitter" is still irresponsible. And the only alternative to "We're streamlining" or "We're facing cuts" is "We axed these people capriciously, just because we felt like it." So the choice is pretty clear.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
"Peace for our time" - Neville Chamberlain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time == "Peace after 1946"
"Mission accomplished!" George W. Bush http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished == "Mission not accomplished"
"Titanic goes down: everyone safe" Daily Express, April 1912 http://www.newstatesman.com/200606190037 == well, even the Cameron film didn't distort reality quite that much.
My favourite, regarding the announcement of the iPod:
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
Who could forget Cmdr Taco's little gem?
Blank until
I used to take Apple's announcements at face value (or at least at the same level of face value as anyone else in the industry) but I learned better.
When Steve Jobs says "flash MP3 players are junk" or "no ugly monitors on nice macs" or any of those other announcements that they're going to turn around a year or three later when they release the iPod Shuffle or "bring your own display keyboard and mouse" Mac mini it's all part of their "never say anything meaningful about future product releases" policy. You can't tell ANYTHING about what Apple's going to release based on what they say. Jobs doesn't just play his cards close to his chest, they're surgically implanted.
....or have slashdot never been wrong?
We have never been wrong. It's just that some of our post refer to conditions in alternate universes. It's a geek thing.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
It *was* a flop.
Apple managed to keep millions brain-dead about mp3's, VBR, lossless...all in the name of style.
Like they did with their computers, in fact.
How far up your butt does your head have to be to refer to a layoff as a "separation"? Such gutless prose deserves our complete contempt.
It has been my experience that managers who lay off their best people to save money don't understand their business. This is what happens when you hire MBA's.
Hey, they didn't become totally worthless then. Those tin containers containing those coasters are the best thing yet to reuse when putting your own precious CD/DVDs into the trunks of the elephants employed by the U.S. Snail Service.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Today The Damned announced that their forthcoming single "New Rose" will be available in the shops on Tuesday, to be followed by "Eloise" next month. Spokesman Captain Sensible, when asked to clarify, was quoted as saying "Wot?".