Most Outrageous Vendor Lie Ever Told? 1314
i8msft writes "CIO published a guide on How To Cut Through Vendor Hype. While light, the article did prompt me to wonder what is the most outrageous lie ever told by a vendor? I mean, in person, face to face, preferably with witnesses (boss, coworkers, someone on your side of the fence). Forget press releases, trade show presentations and the like, where they lie like dogs! Specific examples only, please."
My Vote: (Score:5, Funny)
JoeLinux
One Word... (Score:5, Funny)
Mandrake (Score:3, Funny)
"All membership levels enjoy the same benefits."
Now it's "almost the same benefits".
We make a secure Operating System (Score:2, Funny)
- Microsoft
Troll? (Score:0, Funny)
The Biggest Lie (Score:4, Funny)
best lie (Score:5, Funny)
Not exactly worst lie, but most stupid sales pitch (Score:3, Funny)
We currently run 100M fibre to the lab, and 2 x 100M fibre to the rest of the building, which itself is overkill. We had a vendor trying to sell us single mode fibre "so we could do 10Gb ethernet" between the two buildings.
Like, nice try but hmm, no not really, really, I think SDH/SONET between the two buildings would be overkill
Blatant Lie In the Product Name itself (Score:5, Funny)
I know it's overused, but hey it's valid.
One word... (Score:5, Funny)
His name was Xenu. (Score:5, Funny)
IBM once told me.. (Score:2, Funny)
Vendor Lie (Score:2, Funny)
"It's not a bug, it's a feature."
Re:We had a sales man from ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:We make a secure Operating System (Score:3, Funny)
Microsoft after IIS hack allows hackers to post porn on my employer's web site.
Oracle (Score:1, Funny)
Re:best lie (Score:5, Funny)
You mean you didn't get that hint? You fool, you could've had him. He wanted you,... BAD!
"Yes, we are J2EE compatible" (Score:3, Funny)
3 lies.. (Score:5, Funny)
Song: "The Reviewer" (Score:3, Funny)
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]
XBox (Score:4, Funny)
write your own operating system ... (Score:5, Funny)
My friend/co-worker, Mike X. decided to go to CompuLand or something like that, to see the new line of PC clones. When we got to the store, someone straight out of Saturday Night Fever began to pitch us a system with the integrity of a used car salesmen.
When we started asking questions about the operating system, he perceptively asked us, with a wonderfully Broolynese accent "... you guys are programmers, right ?"
He went on, now with a bit of body English "... well I'm a programmer, you're a programmer
Appearently Mike had the same thought at the same moment I did
Needless to say, the salesguy left us alone from therein.
When service would be available. (Score:4, Funny)
A few months ago I moved to where I currently live. I called Comcast (the only cable company choice here) and asked if cable modems were available. After getting my address the service rep on the line replied "Absolutely. Would you like to setup cable service now?"
Happy, I went through the process of setting up an account. I was told that once the cable was installed, I could call back and setup the cable modem account.
A week later, cable installed, I call back. "Sorry, they aren't available yet". hmm. I asked when they would be. "Next week." I was disappointed, but hey, only a week.
I called back a week later. Now it was a month. I called back a month later, now they weren't sure, and I got a "Well, people in that call center don't know what they are talking about."
Two months later I call back. Still not available. By this point I had DSL installed (a whole 'nother story). I made one final call to get them to remove service (The only reason I got it to begin with was because of the cable modem!)
BTW, the whole time this was going on, several neighbors and I were all getting fliers from Comcast to sign up for cable modem service.
Most outrageous. (Score:1, Funny)
After the meeting: "So what did I promise him?"
Bill Gates (Score:1, Funny)
Printer Commercial (Score:2, Funny)
And everyone seemed amazed.
Re:Not exactly worst lie, but most stupid sales pi (Score:2, Funny)
And just what kind of research ARE you doing in there?
-l
Monster cable! (Score:4, Funny)
~Loren
Re:Cigarettes (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Blatant Lie In the Product Name itself (Score:5, Funny)
And now I have no idea where I'm going to put all these office chairs.
Local tech support (Score:3, Funny)
Re:We make a secure Operating System (Score:5, Funny)
five biggest lies i've bought into (Score:5, Funny)
2: a massive 512K of RAM (1985)
3: a massive 8M of RAM (1991)
4: a massive 128M of RAM (1996)
5: a massive 1.5G of RAM (this weekend)
Re:We had a sales man from ... (Score:2, Funny)
All Your Base Are Belong To Us (Score:5, Funny)
NT (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The Biggest Lie (Score:5, Funny)
"News for Nerds, Stuff that matters."
(I'll take my beating in private)
Re:write your own operating system ... (Score:5, Funny)
Appearently Mike had the same thought at the same moment I did
... and that salesman's name was Linus Torvalds!
GIR (Score:3, Funny)
Automatic Butt-holer... (Score:4, Funny)
My dad never did by the machine, but I have a feeling they were lying when they said it had a feature to automatically butthole something.
Hacker's arent allowed to use our service... (Score:5, Funny)
The problem was that the authorization code was always the same. In fact, according to the validation service's spec, the code was always '0000'. And all the codes were sent via the web pages the user accessed as HTML hidden variables. One could (and I did) build dummy HTML pages that simply sent the authorization code to the website, bypassing the validation service, and recieving all the goodies reserved for paying customers.
So I went to see the validation service people to explain to them their non-existant securtity model. And they acknowledged the problem and said they would have it fixed promptly. And if you believe that, boy have I got a bridge you'ld love to have!
First they claimed that since the code was a 'hidden variable' no one could see it.
After I built the dummy page in front of them (in friggin notepad), they claimed that I didnt get all the authentication codes in and they were sending 'secret, invisible' authorization codes that didn't appear on the web pages. Nevermind the fact if I, as the website programmer, couldn't access those 'secret, invisible' authorization codes I couldn't well check for them to autheticate users could I?
Then, they claimed that only people like me could do it, and that I was a Hacker (captial H, please). And, don't you know, Hackers arent allowed to access the validation service.
It was really bad. I ended up yelling at their chief programmer and calling him a liar to his face before they finally stopped stonewalling.
Re:Forgetting hte most important one (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Blatant Lie In the Product Name itself (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Conversion of old database (Score:4, Funny)
Got a project from a client - well, half a project. We got the 'web' half, and the other team got the 'database' half. The database was SQL7, but that team said it had to be upgraded to SQL2000 - they'd handle the whole thing.
For some reason, the first 7 weeks we weren't allowed to know who the other team was. Turns out they were down the road from us. Well, we coded against the spec we were given. They didn't. They 'upgraded' the SQL7 to SQL2000 database.
Guess how? Using the 'upgrade' wizard which would have taken about 20 minutes? Nope - they apparently recreated everything by hand. About 50 tables, maybe 20-30 columns each. This apparently took them 8 weeks. Oh, yeah, this was the best part:
Every column in every table was VARCHAR(50). Didn't matter what it used to be.
*THEY* got paid. *WE* got stuck essentially recreating/upsizing the SQL7 -> 2000 database (absolutely no reason to, except that that's the only DB they now had) and had to do that in about 2 days while debugging the code we were working on.
VARCHAR(50). For everything.
An SNMP-enabled router, by any chance? (Score:3, Funny)
You really shouldn't roll out the red carpet like that. (-:0
Salesmen? (Score:3, Funny)
CD burning for Audiophiles (Score:5, Funny)
After the expected disclaimers about the limited quality of CDs, etc, they proceeded to review the options for media, burners, configuration options, etc. Then, as expected, came the result of their listening tests. Although the differences were subtle, the best quality was obtained by using the most expensive drive, with the most expensive gold media, set on 1x recording speed.
The kicker came near the end, where the author noted that "even though all of the CDs we burned were bit-for-bit identical when compared on our computer, the bits on CDs produced with less expensive recorders or at higher recording speeds had dirtier edges, and repeated copying further degraded the quality of the bits".
Re:My Vote: (Score:5, Funny)
College Network Sevices (Score:2, Funny)
Re:We had a sales man from ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Forgetting hte most important one (Score:5, Funny)
"Windows 95 needs at least 8 MB RAM." -- Bill Gates, 1996
"Nobody will ever need Windows 95. -- logical conclusion
Re:CD burning for Audiophiles (Score:2, Funny)
HP 32-bit thing (Score:5, Funny)
One time I was at a conference sponsered by HP, Netscape, SCO and Oracle. It was called "UNIX in the Year 2000" (this was in 1998 or something). This took place in Israel. Netscape, SCO and Oracle sent some top-dog public-speakers from their European divisions, all of which gave great talks (even Oracle!)
HP had some guy from the Israeli vendors.
He was asked when HP is going to support 64-bit computing.
His answer: "64-bit is SLOWER than 32-bit! With 64-bit there's DOUBLE the memory to go through, so it takes the program TWICE AS LONG to do anything!!!"
Yes, caps and exclemation marks and all - the guy was YELLING at the person who asked the question. And he said this in front of HUNDREDS of highly experienced UNIX guys.
Re:His name was Xenu. (Score:0, Funny)
Hahahaha!
Iomega technical support (Score:5, Funny)
Me: My drive makes strange noises when I put in a disk.
Iomega Rep: Is your Zip drive within 6 feet of your monitor?
Me: Why yes, it is?
Iomega Rep: Well, that could be the problem.
Me: Interesting...well, the cord that came with the drive is only 2 feet long. Should I try stretching it?
Needless to say, I eventually had to send it back. The one good thing I can say about Zip drives...the one year warranty never expires! You get a new one every 6-9 months when the old one dies.
My wife's former boss (Score:2, Funny)
(For those who don't know crypto, this doesn't exist.)
In a later episode, at a company party, there was a "raffle" for a Palm III (it was several years ago). The sign said "Enter your business card for a chance to win a Palm III". My wife thought it a little fishy that the company's biggest customer won and her suspicions were confirmed when she later heard her boss (the same one) bragging how he had rigged the contest so the customer would win.
Re:Microsoft Lies (Score:5, Funny)
You mean, like MSDOS?
-- this is not a sig.
Re:Microsoft Lies (Score:4, Funny)
"Everything you do will be more fun"
Re:My Vote: (Score:2, Funny)
We have a winner! (Score:5, Funny)
How about this one? (Score:1, Funny)
He was in a meeting where the guy running the show was talking about the financial prospects for the coming year.
Ok, contract "A" is worth $100mil, but we only stand a 10% chance of winning it.
Contract "B" is worth $20mil, and we stand a 40% chance of winning it.
Contract "C" is only worth $10mil, but we stand an 80% chance of winning that one...
so, 10% of $100mil, plus 40% of $20mil, plus 80% of $10mil, means that we should make about $26mil in the coming year.
As all the other management was knodding their heads in agreement, the guy who told the story popped up and questioned what happened if we didn't win the 1st two contracts... or any of them for that matter. He was given a glare and ignored.
Re:how about Oracle? They're pretty good liars (Score:2, Funny)
Re:The Biggest Lie (Score:1, Funny)
Re:write your own operating system ... (Score:1, Funny)
A: The used car salesman knows when he is lying.
Re:Those silly retail shareware vendors 10 yrs ago (Score:5, Funny)
However, I once saw one of those racks at Future Shop. On the back of every package was the phrase "Hermetically sealed to prevent viruses!"
Had a good laugh about that one.
Back when my amiga died... (Score:3, Funny)
After phoning an Amiga vendor in Sydney, I asked about the prices for a new A1200, and chatted about Amigas in general - A1200's were still pretty expensive, around $1000 australian for one, and I commented on the price, also noting I'd been looking at a second hand powermac for a fifth of what he was charging.
In all seriousness he told me "An Amiga can emulate a macintosh faster than the fastest Mac runs".
This was apparently true for a few months When the first 68040 Amigas came out, but I'm damned sure quoting it to me in 2000 when G4's were hitting 500Mhz is just a small lie :P.
Re:Cigarettes (Score:3, Funny)
Re:We had a sales man from ... (Score:2, Funny)
I won't forget the day the Madison Wisc. "Isthmus" ran a picture of a sign at the local Holiday Inn reading "Welcome Wang Users".
[The "Ursula Understands" column accompanying the picture fielded several hardware and software questions, and was priceless.]
Apparently in Australia they had more trouble with their slogan "Wang Cares".
As for vaporware, the system was supposed to be secure, but somehow one of the secretaries at university hospital pushed the wrong button and dumped a report of the salaries of the top thoracic surgeons. My that was an interesting day!
Biggest Lie (Score:2, Funny)
CompUSA and surge protectors (Score:2, Funny)
when I asked the salesman in the video department about cables i also needed, and he saw that i had a surge protector (different from those in his department), he tried to pitch his units.
i asked him the difference between his and the ones across the store. "oh, these ones are specially made for home entertainment systems."
i was intrigued, and asked him exactly how. "oh, the voltage is different, and these are made for TV systems circuits."
yeah. thanks, dude. now go away...
640K... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:My wife's former boss (Score:3, Funny)
Old mother hubbard DMCA, Google delists Slashdot (Score:2, Funny)
From the "we should have seen this coming" dept.
Well it looks like our (ex) favourite search engine, Google has delisted slashdot due to a DMCA threat recieved by the scientologists this morning.
Re:best lie (Score:5, Funny)
Master/Slave (Score:3, Funny)
"Well the Master/Slave on an IDE cable is only a theory, so it doesn't always work.
Re:Monster cable! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:XBox (Score:3, Funny)
The "Coke Test" (Score:5, Funny)
The salesman had taken one of the few prototypes they had to a demo at a large hotel chain. The demo is going well and then one of the hotel people asks the question, "Will it pass the Coke test?". The salesman doesn't have a clue what the Coke test is, but in true salesman form, he answers "Yes." The hotel buyer proceeds to pick up a can of Coke, pop the tab and dump it down the keyboard of the very expensive prototype... Needless to say, that prototype never worked again. The real amazing part of the story is that the Hotel bought a lot of them -- with the newly designed rubber matt over the keyboard... I gather that particular salesman never made up answers to questions after that, too...
From Road Runner Tech Support... (Score:2, Funny)
"Anything under 1000 ms to your first hop is acceptable"
"Our salesman may have lied" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mandrake (Score:1, Funny)
Some are more equal than others.
Re: Hacker's arent allowed to use our service... (Score:2, Funny)
> While improving the code on a client's website, I became suspicious of the credit card validation code.
Hey -- you forgot to give us a link to the site!
Re:Computer Speaker Wattage Ratings (Score:3, Funny)
You've got a lot to answer for motherfucker
Re:write your own operating system ... (Score:2, Funny)
http://www.petemoss.com/spamflames/experiences.htm l
"AMD chips are not Windows compatible" (Score:3, Funny)
CD Burning Bullsh*t (Score:2, Funny)
I was in PC World in Yeovil (England) about a week ago (I know, I know, but there's virtually nothing else around here) when I overheard a truly amazing conversation between a spotty-faced salesman (correction; sales-pre-pubescent-teen), and some poor shmuck looking to buy a new PC.
Customer: So this new machine has a CD-ROM burner built in yes? [Gesturing to some off-the-shelf PC with XP Home installed] Will I be able to transfer my music files to a CD that I can play in the car?
Sales-pre-pubescent-teen: [Sensing a quick sale] Oh no, you can't do that out of the box. You see, the music files that you'll be playing are in MP3 format, whereas CDs that you can play in your car use a format known as RealAudio.
I kid you not.
Re:Fluoride is a GOOD thing (Score:2, Funny)
Re:best lie (Score:3, Funny)
_______
* Only applies if you are female.
Re:His name was Xenu. (Score:2, Funny)
(There is another 1-2% who are basically psychotic and will do nasty things just for the asking, but you want to filter them out as well, since they won't follow orders later on.)
I heard that on top of that, I heard from a reliable resource that there's roughly about another 10-20% who can't do basic math. Percentages, in particular. Can't remember who I heard that from, though.. might've been one of them marketing people?