“Fully redundant”When the product fails, your IT staffers, working by the light of kerosene lanterns, may be able to restart the system using a length of stereo wire, some Juicy Fruit and a car battery.“24/7 customer support”You’re welcome to call and talk to our automated phone system any time you want. “Begins shipping later this quarter”We use the terms “quarter” and “decade” interchangeably here. “The leading provider of…”Just got the venture capital firm’s check last week and finally moved the company out of the dorm room.“Backward compatible”Version 2.0 is guaranteed to read files created by Version 1.9 for at least five (5) business days.“Merger of equals”We actually believed our own sales forecasts, opening us up to a hostile takeover. In six months, no one will remember our name. “Ajax-driven Web application”Guaranteed to crash your browser.“Open source”You’ll be relying on Latvian high school drop-outs for upgrades. “Integrated security”We bought a little firewall startup and grafted their code onto ours.“Conceptually, we’re a Web 2.0 company”Desperately trying to resuscitate ideas from the dotcom era.“Ensures SOX compliance”When your CEO and/or CFO winds up behind bars, we’ll send brownies.“Free six-month trial”After trial ends, salespeople will call you, e-mail you, IM you, rent blimps to fly over the links while you’re golfing and, if necessary, camp out in your outer office until you agree to buy the product.“Enterprise-grade”Too complicated for consumers or small businesses to use.“Robust”System runs beautifully as long as no wackos attempt to change the configuration, delete a user or add a record.“Intuitive user interface”After two weeks of offsite training, several of your brighter employees will have figured out how to log on.“Positive ROI within 12 months”By uninstalling our hardware after 364 days, your time will be freed up to work on more productive things. Related content feature 10 most popular IT certifications for 2023 Certifications are a great way to show employers you have the right IT skills and specializations for the job. These 10 certs are the ones IT pros are most likely to pursue, according to data from Dice. By Sarah K. White May 26, 2023 8 mins Certifications Careers interview Stepping up to the challenge of a global conglomerate CIO role Dr. Amrut Urkude became CIO of Reliance Polyester after his company was acquired by Reliance Industries. He discusses challenges IT leaders face while transitioning from a small company to a large multinational enterprise, and how to overcome them. By Yashvendra Singh May 26, 2023 7 mins Digital Transformation Careers brandpost With the new financial year looming, now is a good time to review your Microsoft 365 licenses By Veronica Lew May 25, 2023 5 mins Lenovo news Alteryx works in generative AI for speedy analytics results OpenAI integration and AI wizardry for report generation are aimed at making Alteryx’s analytics products more accessible. By Jon Gold May 25, 2023 3 mins Analytics Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe