It’s common for large companies to have furious internal discussions about how to handle a particular analyst, reporter, or other influencer. Microsoft gets the most press for this, I think, but they clearly all do it. One place Don Bulmer went beyond the pale is when he reflected some of those conversations back to me, very inaccurately. E.g., Don misquoted Dennis Moore, presumably not knowing that Dennis and I used to talk for 4-5 hours at a time. Dennis might successfully deceive me on a product feature, but if Don Bulmer tells me Dennis Moore said something very uncharacteristic of him, and Dennis denies it, I confidently assume Don Bulmer is the one who’s lying. Especially since Don said a number of other implausible or obviously insincere things in the same discussions …

It seems I created for you the expectation that I would engage in a detailed, more or less classical, flame war. (Or at least a one-sided one, as I don’t think SAP wants to engage in that.) I’m sorry for any confusion. That was not and is not my intention.

I publish blogs for free; and I must admit that for that and other reasons I do not always do everything I could to be maximally persuasive to every one of my readers. If my neglect in this regard causes you to become an ex-reader, I will have to accept the disappointment and move on.

CAM

Anyhow, the context to my comments is this: I had a fairly standard situation with SAP in which they bought some services, had an internal management change, and had second thoughts as a result. And as is common in such awkward situations, there was some stringing-along and so on. When things finally became clear, I said in effect “Whoa. That’s highly unethical.” And they said, in effect, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Up to that point, the story is one of an ordinary business dispute, and we all know that big companies sometimes have sharp elbows. Of course, I was right and they were wrong, and there aren’t even two legitimate sides to the matter, but you’re free to not believe me, since I’m not going to try to prove my case here.

However, from there they were left with the problem of “handling” my outrage. Unfortunately, they chose a path of downright lies (and of course all sorts of other nonsense mixed in). Not only is that bad, but it leads me to suspect that the original problem stems from more deliberate and/or reckless dishonesty than my recounting above suggests.

As for why I called them out on it publicly, rather than swallowing it and moving on? Multiple reasons, none of which I particularly feel like sharing, except that I direct your attention to the phrase “and lied about” that I used in the original post.

OK. That’s more than I planned to say, so please let’s not have more nudging for more details. If you’re unsatisfied, tough.

CAM

Usually, companies show their best faces to analysts. Or if they don’t, they fall down in different ways than I experienced with SAP (e.g., they’re stupidly secretive, they’re inappropriately combative, they overhype, etc.). SAP, by way of contrast, engaged in some bad ethical behavior with me, and when I called them on it wound up compounding it multiple times over, up to the level of clearcut lies. That’s not a fatal condemnation of the company; it’s just a warning flag.

At this point, I don’t see where it’s a great idea to delve down into the specifics. (Events could change my mind of course.) But I did feel it was more appropriate to be fairly straightforward about what I am thinking here than to just hint around it for some indeterminate, possibly long period of time.