Private companies reporting sales numbers
Lockdown Networks is a company I am familiar with. I speak with Rob Gilde, their VP of product development pretty often. For the life of me though, I don't understand private companies releasing self-serving press releases touting their sales numbers exceeding expectations. Guys, who believes a word you are writing here? I am not saying you are lying, but without public financials to look at, who knows. On top of this though, this PR had some other nonsense though that earns it the first book of the month award for November.
1. First are the financial numbers. It is almost 2 months after the end of the quarter, why so late? Was this a case of "35 day months" or did the computer with the financial system crash. Without telling us where you were in Q2, 30% quarter over quarter growth is meaningless.
2. Customer references - Regular household names here: Southern University Law Center, Valley Forge Christian College, University of the Tecnolรณgico de Monterrey, the Government of Jamaica and Digital Forest. Not one enterprise account in the bunch.
3. Support for MS NAP- great, NAP will not be released until 2nd half of 2007. Releasing their support in Q3 2006 doesn't seem a big money maker here. On top of this not sure if it is a typo but they claim with their support for MS NAP will allow them to apply policy to endpoints not able to support MS NAP. Not sure what that is about.
4. Setting a new benchmark for NAC functionality by announcing support for enforcement on SSL and IPsec VPNs. Setting a new benchmark? How about woefully behind the rest of the field. Most NAC solutions had VPN support for a long time already and this was a glaring hole in Lockdown's product.
When are companies going to learn that these type of fluffernutter releases get recognized for the garbage they are. Put out something meaningful and worthwhile and stop wasting our time.
Book art is from: Mutants & Masterminds: Lockdown (Mutants & Masterminds Sourcebook) Lucien Soulban
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