How not to communicate the value of a product

Bill Gates is at it again. Today, several major newspapers have articles about Microsoft's promotion of its Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 (phew! I didn't say launch because the software won't be available for several months). But this is a great example of a company pushing features without really thinking through how people will use the product in real-world environments. The Register had a fairly telling description of how the demo worked:

The software worked smoothly enough but Microsoft execs were clearly unfamiliar with dealing with the delay introduced by satellite circuits and ended up talking over each other, rather like a Robert Altman movie but without the witty banter. Echo-cancellation software might have helped. The demo was running late and ended abruptly when the satellite connection timed out and was lost but not before Troy, 'star' of US reality TV show The Apprentice, had managed to pepper the dialogue with a series on bizarre interjections. MS execs didn't know what to make of the talented celebrity's comments that he was "happy as a frog on a hot plate" or that something else was "sweating like a stuffed pig", and nor do we.

Just to summarize, a demonstration intended to show productivity benefits available to corporate executives simply demonstrated that proxies for these executives couldn't keep up a normal conversation using the tool.

These guys desperately need a marketer to explain to them that demos are supposed to show good things about a product.