Tech industry execs sometime make claims that leave people saying, wait, what did he/she just say?
The claims are usually about sales figures, or the pace of sales, or the power of a particular tech or product that is changing an industry.
We're not saying there's anything wrong with this—after all, it's tech execs' job to pump up products and get people excited about them.
However, there are cases where execs creatively interpret stats to make a point. Or, take data out of context to make it seem more impressive.
While the execs' statements are technically true, they're not always accurate depictions of what's really happening.
We're not saying anyone's fibbing, but there's no denying that execs sometimes treat data like Silly Putty, molding and shaping it to fit whatever narrative it is that they're pushing.
Microsoft: The "New Office" has sold one copy every second
Kurt DelBene, president of the Microsoft Office Division, told a gathering of some 16,ooo Microsoft partners that 1 billion people were using Office around the world.
A big part of that, he said, was the positive reception to Office 2010.
How positive? DelBene said someone in the world buys a copy of Office 2010 every second.
Now, we're not saying this isn't true. But this does create the impression of a feeding frenzy of interest in Office 2010, with people camped out around Microsoft stores clamoring for a chance to get their hands on it.
The reality is, a great deal of Microsoft's Office sales are to enterprises that buy it as part of "volume licensing" contracts. With these, enterprises pay a lump sum up front and get everything Microsoft releases over the term of the contract.
HP: Our website gets 9 Billion hits per month
HP CEO Meg Whitman dropped a stunning stat into her keynote speech in early June at Discover, the company's customer conference.
HP.com is getting 300 million hits per day, Whitman said.
That's 9 billion hits per month.
That's a truly mind boggling number. But on closer inspection, it's not as huge a figure as it sounds.
Thing is, no one uses hits anymore when talking about web traffic. That's because "hits" is an outdated metric that includes all the images and other files served up in a webpage.
A single webpage can generate hundreds of hits.
So, we're not taking anything away from HP—it's still getting a ton of traffic to its website. But pageviews and unique visitors are a much more relevant way to measure web traffic.
HP.com serves around 11 million people per month, according to analytics firm Quantcast.
Oracle claims exadata database machine is 20 times faster than IBM systems
Last July, Oracle got some heat from the National Advertising Division after running ads that suggested its Exadata database hardware was 20 times faster than IBM's power system servers.
IBM complained to the NAD that Oracle was implying that all of its Exadata products were faster than all its Power systems.
IBM said Oracle didn't provide evidence for its claims, other that saying in an ad that a "Giant European Retailer" switched from IBM to Oracle and found it 20 times faster.
The NDA sided with IBM, and Oracle stopped running the ad, though it did appeal.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider