Udo's Techblog

Word has it Microsoft is rethinking its "freeform" PR strategy in the light of the ambivalent market response to new products such as Vista. Further evidence in the form of Steve Jobs' fulminant iPhone launch appears to validate the theory that people don't want to see how the sausage is made.

I'd venture that, feature-wise, the iPhone should have been a disaster. And I agree that any form of openness in PR would have meant tons of negative PR for Apple. Thus, the iPhone launch was appropriately handled.

But here's the thing: customers will figure out eventually that they just bought a crappy device for many hundreds of dollars. Only that will be well after the first waves of sales. Eventually, customers will weary of the "we know what's best for you and our product absolutely rocks" type of marketing. Also, honesty and free flow of information in PR works only if you have a great product.

So, yeah, if you know your product sucks, heavily regulating the outflow of information pays off in the short term. But wouldn't rethinking your development process make more sense than betting your company's success on how well the advertising team can lie?