Ah yes hubris. I discovered this word while I was working for the world's largest silicon chip manufacturer - funny that. The freedictionary describes it as: "Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance" but it is usually assigned to the view of the world taken by corporations. And what better demonstrators of this than companies in the IT world.
A really good example of hubris is the "new and exciting" launch of Telecom's XT network here in New Zealand. This product has hit the streets here with a fabulously expensive advertising campaign using a rather weird looking Hamster from Top Gear.
What I love about these campaigns is their outright assumption that the services they are delivering with their "new" product are unique.
We've been roaming around the world seamlessly with one phone for a number of years, we've been using high speed networks for a few, in fact TC's early CDMA network was pretty fast anyway. We've been able to choose the latest phones from all the manufacturers in the world and, more importantly, we haven't had to add our contacts in every time we get a new handset.
So why all the fanfare for something we already have.....because their arrogance presumes that we have never seen it before.
Makes you wonder eh?
This is why you should never trust brochures, the reason somebody is telling you that they have a unique service is because you are the only person listening. If you're looking for something new it is your duty to challenge that statement and look beyond - you may be pleasantly surprised.
If you want a shock start looking around at open source software software or cloud computing services - a wild and wonderful world!
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