Commodore Rocks...Because I Said So

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spincut said:
You got a link? This is terrible news, i wonder why they stopped (why i want to see a link, because i dont remember seeing it). I would have figured it would indeed be a big editorial or something stating why they were halting their review program, but it has eluded me!

Anyway, if you have a link that would be great, i wants to gets to the bottoms of this.
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http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1184312


On topic: I have to agree with Kyle on this one. He did come off curt and to the point but anyone that's been around this website and forums for more than a few months knows that's his style and it's what makes [H] so unique in the enthusiast world. Kyle asked a legitimate question about backing up the PR claims (something I think alot of critical enthusiasts would do, myself included) and got shot down. Dave must not be familiar with [H]ardocp because if he was, I would think he'd see a question like that coming and, conversely, not send a dumb reply like "Are you serious?" I really don't think it's too hard to provide some data to at least even try to substantiate their claims.

This is why 90% of my tech reading is done at [H]. It's a no-holds-barred look into the industry that doesn't let corporate BS run the site. Kyle just tells it like it is and that's why he and his site have such a strong following.
 
Why did you guys not accept the offer of Commodore providing a test unit for you guys to do benchmarks on...I mean that is what you guys do right? :confused:

If you guys approached me with that attitude I would ignore you too. Im sure the guy feels like he's being interrogated.
 
cosmo3 said:
Maybe your time could be better spent trying to get the Forums part of your web sight working better. It is at times slow and down way too often. In fact I think some other forums may be 30 percent faster.
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Are you serious?
 
markt435 said:
HardOCP: ORLY?
Commodore: YA RLY
HardOCP: SRSLY?
Commodore: ...

i thought after that first email back you could have said, "Thanks, thats what I thought." lol
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LOL, Thank you that was perfect!

That is probably how I would have responded "Please provide supporting performance data and I will be happy to to post your press release."

But then again that is probably why I don't run a successful hardware enthusiast site. Press thrives on controversy...
 
Well, back and forth bitchslapping aside, the fact of the matter is this:

If you are going to make a specific claim using numbers, you better have a document laying around somewhere that provides how you got those numbers. Even if it was just PR, even if it was in one specific test with one specific configuration against a few other specific configurations... if you are going to say "30% faster than other systems with this benchmark" then have a paper saying how you got that benchmark. It is as simple and easy as that. This is very common and expected for companies to do when making such claims, and the fact that Commodore doesn't know it needs to do it says a lot about how their company must be run in general, IMO. If you don't have a paper like that that to show, don't be surprised when you get called out for it, or even worse, sued by your competitors for making false claims of their bad performance. As Kyle said, they should have either had a document showing how they got that specific benchmark OR they should have just said "we have the best performance in the market" which would have been very hard to argue against because "best performance" isn't specific and could mean anything.
 
:rolleyes:i don't know if you guys remember this part, but after the c64 comodore coame out with the comodore amiga 500., 1000, and 2000. at the time good computers, and escpecially the amiga 500 was cheap and a good performer at the time.
It got kinda quiet after those guys came out and then comodore's PR started spinning about this shiny black amiga, that came with Cd-drive and all kind of funky new radical features.
Well the thing was highly overpriced and had alot of flaws, one of which was performance.
I geuss they hoped that everybody forgot about that little mishap in marketing.:rolleyes:
They obviously did.
 
Really they should have stuck with the normal inane PR comments like:
Commodore xx

The Commodore xx doesn't just blur the line between gaming and reality, it redefines it.
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I was vaguely interested to see what this company would do but...

Really, were you being serious? Just need to know if want a real answer on this one…

-Dave
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This was just odd and probably why this got the attention it did from Kyle. This is they way you would answer if you had something REALLY good up your sleeve. Some thing that would "Set the Hook" if you were in sales. He had nothing...
 
desultadox said:
To be honest, even though I'm a big [H]ardOCP fan, I found Kyle's emails to be unjustifiably curt or even downright rude. I kind of think it's unprofessional to even post this, especially if it came from email outside of the press release. By not including ALL the emails, it's even borderline unethical. None of this seems fair at all; not to Commodore and not to [H]ardOCP readers.

On the flipside, do I believe a thing Commodore's PR had to say about their computers? Not at all.
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Oh, I do think there were some heated words thrown about by both sides, especially in the e-mails Kyle Bennett didn't post. Having said that, the Commodore PR man set the stage so to speak, based on Kyle's article IMO. He set the stage by calling Kyle bitter and so forth when Kyle simply requested data to back up the claims. There's more tactful way to try to dodge a question, and to try to keep on hiding behind PR hype then by puffing out one's chest and making blanket accusations.

Or to put it another way, if someone were to pull out a can of soda pop and say "This soda has all the sugar but half the calories of major leading brands like Coca Cola or Pepsi!", but at the same time this someone were to call anyone asking to look at the nutritional label on the side of the can "bitter", and then say "Oh well we'll let you have a sip of this soda and read the label 3 to 6 months from now...", how would you react?

Hopefully this PR man doesn't truly represent how Commodore thinks or wishes to be seen..but if he doesn't, they had better fire his firm FAST, and hire another before he makes their name go from one valued due to nostalgia reasons to one shown disdain for being all fluff and hype, no real product.
 
Kyle next time you smell blood, you don't need to go in for the kill. Let the PR guy kill himself instead. Don't be so defensive and reactionary. Honestly you came across as unprofessional, albeit in response to unprofessional provocation. The site goers don't need to read about this stuff. Everyone here nows that in the PR and business world by extension that things can get heated and donwright immature. In fact the definition of professionalism is probably best summed up by the ability to ignore and not get dragged into situations like this.

Anyway I say all of this as constructive critisism. Everyone knew you were right from the first paragraph. The article was 10% informative and 90% a display of the communication breakdown between two human beings in an ugly way.
 
HardOCP: ORLY?
Commodore: YA RLY
HardOCP: SRSLY?
Commodore: ...

i thought after that first email back you could have said, "Thanks, thats what I thought." lol
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LOL...that made my morning :D
 
Sigh, this is one of the few reasons I don't like the [H], every so often it seems Kyle gets a bug up his ass about nothing (or some perceived 'slight'). From the email chain posted by Kyle, it looks like nothing got incited until he started telling the guy to stop whining and get his panties out of a bunch. You personally insult the guy without provocation (or at least without personal provocation) and then wonder why things degenerate? And then, to get the last word, you post it on the front page of your website all because of some stupid PR release? Quite juvenile, and I know it's your page so do what you want, but about once a year or so I see something stupid like this that isn't even news worthy (is an email spat with some PR dude really front page news?). To me, this reflects just as poorly on [H] as it does Commodore. I may be in the minority, but FFS why would this be put on the front page? It tells us nothing about Commodore's systems or even them as a company other than that they have a PR guy that isn't an engineer and that can be baited into an email war seemingly solely because he either doesn't know who the great 'Kyle from [H]' is or doesn't bow down to his power. Wow...You sure exposed them!
 
cosmo3 said:
You were way out of line picking on Commodore, your emails to them were trying to start a war. Who cares about them anymore anyways. Maybe your time could be better spent trying to get the Forums part of your web sight working better. It is at times slow and down way too often. In fact I think some other forums may be 30 percent faster.
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I can't wait for Kyle to respond to this :D
 
^^^ What Cobra said.

I read this thread before I read the article, and I expected the email communication to get pretty brutal. However, although some of it was pretty terse at times, I don't think any of it was undeserved.

In my job, we regularly have suppliers and potential suppliers visit us to give us presentations on their latest-and-greatest. The single biggest and most common error we see from our visitors is this: they send a marketing/sales person to pitch a product to a bunch of engineers. And engineers like to ask questions. Deep, technical questions. Questions that go down to the principles of physics behind their products. I've seen marketing people in meetings get absolutely crucified. At least most of them had the good sense to say "I don't know the answer to that question. I'll write it down and get an answer for you as soon as I can." And the next time they came, they brought along someone who could handle the technical questions.

To question a potential customer's right to question unsupported claims is an insult to your customers. And in this case, we are the customers, and Kyle represents us. At the very least, David should have followed through with his offer to get the hard data from the technical folks, rather than evading.

At the same time, however, I don't know everything about the situation, so I can't fully judge David. For all we know, he was just given the assignment to "get this press release published on as many computer-related sites as you can" without sufficient information to back up the claims. In that case, it's a failure on the part of management. What I guess I'm saying is this: don't judge the guy too quickly. He's certainly not innocent, but it may not be appropriate to lay all the blame at his feet.
 
bobzdar said:
Sigh, this is one of the few reasons I don't like the [H], every so often it seems Kyle gets a bug up his ass about nothing (or some perceived 'slight'). From the email chain posted by Kyle, it looks like nothing got incited until he started telling the guy to stop whining and get his panties out of a bunch. You personally insult the guy without provocation (or at least without personal provocation) and then wonder why things degenerate? And then, to get the last word, you post it on the front page of your website all because of some stupid PR release? Quite juvenile, and I know it's your page so do what you want, but about once a year or so I see something stupid like this that isn't even news worthy (is an email spat with some PR dude really front page news?). To me, this reflects just as poorly on [H] as it does Commodore. I may be in the minority, but FFS why would this be put on the front page? It tells us nothing about Commodore's systems or even them as a company other than that they have a PR guy that isn't an engineer and that can be baited into an email war seemingly solely because he either doesn't know who the great 'Kyle from [H]' is or doesn't bow down to his power. Wow...You sure exposed them!
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You don't like the [H] yet you're here, you read the editorial and now you're here posting. Most people don't read sites they don't like.

Anyway, back to assaulting your opinion. The PR guy screwed up completely and totally with his first email. PR guys never respond to an email asking if someone is serious as long as the topic is the PR guy's product. I did a double take when I read that reply. That's the opposite of the standard answer from a PR guy. He's supposed to answer with information concerning the product.

Just like it did for Kyle, that email replay piqued my interest. I also would have responded basically as Kyle did and kept it going back and forth. PR usually has about as much credibility as most of your statistics. You know, damned lies except for one single area where there is some truth. You can fudge numbers one way or another to look good even if it's only in one area where they are true. This guy didn't even do that. That tells you something about the company.

I don't expect this to be over just yet. A press release or some type of retraction will come from Commodore computers concerning this issue. It's at this point where we will be able to see what kind of company this is. A lack of any type of professional response will be as telling as a canned statement.

One of two things will happen at this point. Either Kyle will be given the information he asked for or he won't. If he does get it, then we will find out this PR guy needs to find a new line of work. If he doesn't get it, then the PR guy still needs to find another line of work and the company is flat out lying which goes beyond the normal PR bullshit.

I won't even comment on the "tone" of the emails either way as that is not the important issue at hand. Hell, it's not even an issue at all as it's nothing more than a red herring to attempt to cover up claims which so far cannot seem to be backed up with any type of proof, even slanted proof.

 
Well I think we all know that Kyle caught this guy in the midst of a spun PR line, and the 30% claim was probably some typically convoluted benchmark companies use to get a better score on their system (3dmark was run in a humid room @ 42 degrees, on a tuesday with a full moon). Plus, 30% better than what exactly? Could be anything.

Honestly, though, I dont know what kyle expected. He knew this number sounded too good, and asked the PR guy to verify it. Did he really expect the guy to just be like "Welp, uh, you got me. We compared to numbers from a Dell "gaming pc" with a 2400XT." Its all marketing crap, just like Intel EXTREME graphics. Sad to see it decay into such personal attacks.

PR guys should know better than to approach [H] in that manner, and expect Kyle to just play along. Big mistake. Kyle caught him with his pants down, and he had too much pride to come clean.
 
lewchenko said:
Whilst I like the reviews and approach this site normally takes, I think this whole editorial was unjustified. Kyle - there isnt really that much of a story here. You have however, managed to turn it into one and have probably come off as the lesser man. [not that you think so.. obviously!]

By lesser man here, I am referring to the fact it looks like you wanna pin this guy down to prove every word that leaves his mouth. And thats pedantic. He's in PR, and claims of 'beats other major gaming systems by 30%' could simply be interpreted as 'beats some machines by 30%' as no mention of equivalent costs/components/companies is listed. Where is the lie in that. Its like me saying 'My home build is 30% faster than home builds of other people in the self build market - and that is bloody true .. if I do say so myself!'

I just dont see the reason for this article... kinda pointless, and makes you out to be someone who jumps on any person who cant produce endless data to back up what they say. Another approach would have been to build a better relationship with Commodore and work with them for a better review, as I cant really see a positive relationship coming from this now. Who could blame Commodore either?

Their machines have been well reviewed in the UK for example, and are often seen as 'high performers with a great build, but expensive'.

Famous proverb... "Build bridges not walls."... especially when building relationships with other companies and people.

And please let this not be a witch hunt. No more "He said, she said" articles please.. Keep it behind [H] doors if that stuff does happen. Id rather keep seeing the [H] site for what it does best, and not trashing startups like Commodore .
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I am unsure why you read beyond the intro sentence if you were not interested? Or spent you time here if you are not interested? Is this you building bridges? Telling others how they should behave and adapt to your standard?

And I would suggest asking a person to back up their SPECIFIC PERFOMANCE CLAIMS in the tech sector is FAR from pedantic. By your logic I can now say that AMD is faster than NVIDIA by 30% and that is OK as long as I don't give too many details.
 
Somebody has to call these guys on their bullshit.
Kyle did exactly that, plain and simple.

The fact that there was no further reply emphesizes their bullshit. They didnt even have any half-assed data to send. What do they expect.

See Infinium Labs.:eek:
 
What you're probably forgetting, unless you're old like me, unless you're really old and forgetful, is that the Commodore 64 really was 30% faster than the TI42/4A. But where it fell through was that it didn't have the answer to life, the universe and everything.
 
To the people who think Kyle responded poorly...you have never been in big business behind closed doors. Once blood is sensed at this level, you begin a very quick and swift attack. If somebody makes a claim to one of our higher execs, they better have some form of immediate proof. If they have this, then they "might" get a second look. If they don't, may God have mercy on your soul.

The fact is that Kyle let us see behind closed doors for once. If you don't like it, then maybe you should understand that operating at this “level" is not for you. Pandering at the high end enthusiast as a buyer is like thinking a cars salesman is doing you favor by saying “this car is the best”. Business is business. Pony up or GTFO.

Just my 2 clock cycles...pentium 4 even
 
I'm not sure how calling a PR guy on a very questionable claim being unprofessional.
It would be unprofessional for Kyle to just post it up on their word.
He called BS and they were shocked and not prepared.

The "are you serious" reply was the most unprofessional thing I've seen in a long time.
He should have, like Kyle said he was expecting, sent information to back it up.
 
SmokeRngs said:
You don't like the [H] yet you're here, you read the editorial and now you're here posting. Most people don't read sites they don't like.

Anyway, back to assaulting your opinion. The PR guy screwed up completely and totally with his first email. PR guys never respond to an email asking if someone is serious as long as the topic is the PR guy's product. I did a double take when I read that reply. That's the opposite of the standard answer from a PR guy. He's supposed to answer with information concerning the product.

Just like it did for Kyle, that email replay piqued my interest. I also would have responded basically as Kyle did and kept it going back and forth. PR usually has about as much credibility as most of your statistics. You know, damned lies except for one single area where there is some truth. You can fudge numbers one way or another to look good even if it's only in one area where they are true. This guy didn't even do that. That tells you something about the company.

I don't expect this to be over just yet. A press release or some type of retraction will come from Commodore computers concerning this issue. It's at this point where we will be able to see what kind of company this is. A lack of any type of professional response will be as telling as a canned statement.

One of two things will happen at this point. Either Kyle will be given the information he asked for or he won't. If he does get it, then we will find out this PR guy needs to find a new line of work. If he doesn't get it, then the PR guy still needs to find another line of work and the company is flat out lying which goes beyond the normal PR bullshit.

I won't even comment on the "tone" of the emails either way as that is not the important issue at hand. Hell, it's not even an issue at all as it's nothing more than a red herring to attempt to cover up claims which so far cannot seem to be backed up with any type of proof, even slanted proof.

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I should have edited that first line to say 'one of the few things I don't like about the [H]', on a whole I still like the site.

I think the tone of the emails, considering that is supposedly what started the whole brew-haha, is pretty important and Kyle just comes off as childish and juvenile by starting the personal attacks. Like I said, it's his site and he can put on it what he wants, I was just letting my opinion be known and I feel like it was handled more poorly on the [H] side of things. If you actually expect a reasonable response from somebody, technical or otherwise, telling him to get his panties out of a wad and to stop whining is most decidedly the WRONG way to do so. At that point, I'd have told Kyle to FO, the poor guy's mistake was to continue to feed on the flame bait provided. The fact that Kyle is not only defending but actually touting this behaviour kind of boggles my mind, but like I said, it's his site to do as he pleases and I don't have to like it to continue to enjoy the rest of the site.
 
SmokeRngs said:
You don't like the [H] yet you're here, you read the editorial and now you're here posting. Most people don't read sites they don't like.

Anyway, back to assaulting your opinion. The PR guy screwed up completely and totally with his first email. PR guys never respond to an email asking if someone is serious as long as the topic is the PR guy's product. I did a double take when I read that reply. That's the opposite of the standard answer from a PR guy. He's supposed to answer with information concerning the product.

Just like it did for Kyle, that email replay piqued my interest. I also would have responded basically as Kyle did and kept it going back and forth. PR usually has about as much credibility as most of your statistics. You know, damned lies except for one single area where there is some truth. You can fudge numbers one way or another to look good even if it's only in one area where they are true. This guy didn't even do that. That tells you something about the company.

I don't expect this to be over just yet. A press release or some type of retraction will come from Commodore computers concerning this issue. It's at this point where we will be able to see what kind of company this is. A lack of any type of professional response will be as telling as a canned statement.

One of two things will happen at this point. Either Kyle will be given the information he asked for or he won't. If he does get it, then we will find out this PR guy needs to find a new line of work. If he doesn't get it, then the PR guy still needs to find another line of work and the company is flat out lying which goes beyond the normal PR bullshit.

I won't even comment on the "tone" of the emails either way as that is not the important issue at hand. Hell, it's not even an issue at all as it's nothing more than a red herring to attempt to cover up claims which so far cannot seem to be backed up with any type of proof, even slanted proof.

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I should have edited that first line to say 'one of the few things I don't like about the [H]', on a whole I still like the site.

I think the tone of the emails, considering that is supposedly what started the whole brew-haha, is pretty important and Kyle just comes off as childish and juvenile by starting the personal attacks. Like I said, it's his site and he can put on it what he wants, I was just letting my opinion be known and I feel like it was handled more poorly on the [H] side of things. If you actually expect a reasonable response from somebody, technical or otherwise, telling him to get his panties out of a wad and to stop whining is most decidedly the WRONG way to do so. At that point, I'd have told Kyle to FO, the poor guy's mistake was to continue to feed on the flame bait provided. The fact that Kyle is not only defending but actually touting this behaviour kind of boggles my mind, but like I said, it's his site to do as he pleases and I don't have to like it to continue to enjoy the rest of the site.
 
cosmo3 said:
You were way out of line picking on Commodore, your emails to them were trying to start a war. Who cares about them anymore anyways. Maybe your time could be better spent trying to get the Forums part of your web sight working better. It is at times slow and down way too often. In fact I think some other forums may be 30 percent faster.
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I think you read a different article. Kyle started out asking for elaboration on their claims. The PR guy Dave said "Are you serious?"

I'm a former journalism/PR major and I can tell you that any of my professors would have failed that guy. You NEVER respond that way to a question that could very well be legitimate, even if you think it's a joke. You give a serious answer with elaborations. If you don't have the answers, you respond in a timely manner stating as such and promise to get the answers or have somebody with the answers get in touch with the person asking the initial question.

You also never comment on the mood of the person asking the question. Kyle simply sent e-mail in what is considered standard "business e-mail" form. Writing such e-mails were actually part of my "Media Writing" class.

For Dave to say that Kyle sounded bitter and was harping on him really just made him sound like a whiney bitch. It was beyond unprofessional. It actually makes me question his training and credentials.

FYI, Kyle is working on the forums. I haven't had any problems with it in the past two days. How 'bout you shut your yap and focus on the matter at hand and let the man do the job that he's been very good at for over a decade.
 
mekkanic said:
Why did you guys not accept the offer of Commodore providing a test unit for you guys to do benchmarks on...I mean that is what you guys do right? :confused:

If you guys approached me with that attitude I would ignore you too. Im sure the guy feels like he's being interrogated.
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We did agree to it, but he said it would be months before they could get us a box. Hardly addresses the issue at hand.

But to the point, why should I have to pay an editor a lot of money to prove or disprove his claims. In this business, if you start making specific perfomance claims, the company needs to be able to back them up in some way....not put it off on the person you sent the claims to to disprove them. That is just silly.
 
Mohonri said:
^^^ What Cobra said.

I read this thread before I read the article, and I expected the email communication to get pretty brutal. However, although some of it was pretty terse at times, I don't think any of it was undeserved.

In my job, we regularly have suppliers and potential suppliers visit us to give us presentations on their latest-and-greatest. The single biggest and most common error we see from our visitors is this: they send a marketing/sales person to pitch a product to a bunch of engineers. And engineers like to ask questions. Deep, technical questions. Questions that go down to the principles of physics behind their products. I've seen marketing people in meetings get absolutely crucified. At least most of them had the good sense to say "I don't know the answer to that question. I'll write it down and get an answer for you as soon as I can." And the next time they came, they brought along someone who could handle the technical questions.

To question a potential customer's right to question unsupported claims is an insult to your customers. And in this case, we are the customers, and Kyle represents us. At the very least, David should have followed through with his offer to get the hard data from the technical folks, rather than evading.

At the same time, however, I don't know everything about the situation, so I can't fully judge David. For all we know, he was just given the assignment to "get this press release published on as many computer-related sites as you can" without sufficient information to back up the claims. In that case, it's a failure on the part of management. What I guess I'm saying is this: don't judge the guy too quickly. He's certainly not innocent, but it may not be appropriate to lay all the blame at his feet.
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Exactly, we get some products line presentations from vendors (usually before a cycle of upgrades). They will send their own PR staff to face a whole room of IT technicians and analysts. No need to say that they often get stumped by technical questions so they took more notes than answering (the only thing they are good is wholesale pricing infos).

When someone come to present a product or a idea, he need to be prepared to be under fire and back their claims with proof. Kyle just did this, no matter how all this turn out.
 
Good job calling the bluff Kyle. I love the no bs attitude [H] has always had.
Alot of people have been whining that Kyle was rude and/or unprofessional; that is bull because Kyle is running a business, and he has to represent us by calling a dude on his insane claims. 30% is a huge claim for a non-OC'd system.
Keep up the good work [H]!
 
Thanks for keeping the bullshitters honest, Kyle. Thank God someone has the balls to do it nowadays.
 
bobzdar said:
I think the tone of the emails, considering that is supposedly what started the whole brew-haha, is pretty important and Kyle just comes off as childish and juvenile by starting the personal attacks.
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Are you referring to the part where I told him to get his panties out of a wad after he called me bitter, harping, and accused me of picking on his PR? Is that where I started "personal attacks?" I don't recall ever calling his character or anything personal into question. Did you read the same mails I read?
 
I want to post a heartfelt response to Kyle's Commodore article here. It's long, and could be considered a whine by people who disagree... so please scroll down if you don't like confrontation or conflict.

First of all, and I genuinely mean this-- I have been a fan and a customer of hardocp.com (and later, hardforum.com / ratpadz.com) since early 1999. When I used to buy parts in my early Celeron overclocking days, they were always from [H]-recommended or partnered vendors; companies like AZZO and Plycon. I have bought several RatPadz and have encouraged others to do the same (since they are a good product at a good price). I have enjoyed the articles, heeded the reviews, been wowed by the knocking down of incompetent clowns (like the Phantom management), clicked on the banner ads, participated in the forums, and most of all, truly valued Kyle's contributions to the hardware community through his "direct, no-nonsense approach" to dealing with vendors and consumers alike. Your articles about driver optimizations, bad benchmarks, killer apps for physics processors, etc are some of the biggest intellectual contributions ever to the hardware enthusiast community, in my never-to-be-humble opinion.

And I have no doubt that Kyle is in the right here when dealing with Commodore... a few demos and a press release do not an "industry leader" make. However, his "direct approach" can truly be a double-edged sword, as evidenced here.

To Kyle, I mean this sincerely: You are a great guy and run a great enterprise... but you do not always come off as personable, chummy, or affable (nor do I think you care whether you do or not.) And that is certainly the case in situations like this, where some marketing dude sent out a vaguely worded clump of shenanigans-- you sent a very direct (though properly skeptical) request for information that honestly came across to the "other side" as terse, as though you had prejudice against them or an axe to grind going in.

I'm not asking you to change! On the contrary, I find such personality is refreshing and adds zing to any otherwise boring cluster of hardware reviewers and vendor marketeers exchanging pleasantries and indulging one another's bullplop on a daily basis. However I guess my point is, you shouldn't be surprised that THEY are surprised when you "get top the point" with them right up front. It's an outcome that goes with the territory. Some people handle it better than others and are able to rationalize it... this Commodore guy was clearly taken aback a bit more than others have been.
 
StrayShot said:
And since when is a number not quantitative?
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exactly, things didn't get really heated until Dave was asked to prove his claim of '30% faster in 3dmark06'. Dave's nobody but commodore is something. Dave threw the first stone of arrogance at Kyle and it was derived from his notion of 'i'm cool, this'll be easy, i'm commodore!!!!!!'

and i really do think it was more of a case of ignorant arrogance on Dave's behalf, thinking that everyone would just line up neatly for a chance to look at commodore's alleged 'supercomputer' without so much as a question pertaining to its alleged 'astounding performance'. he was probably hoping for a glowing preview first and a gleaming review around christmastime. i'm sure he'll be doing a little more research the next time he decides to spam out corporate bullshit to hardware enthusiast websites.

Q. How are you an industry leader?
A. We're the only company that offers a full-blown modern gaming rig comparible to major boutique builders which comes pre-loaded with an official C64 emulator so you can play your old favorites on a beautifully-airbrushed, modern, powerhouse pc.

Wow, that sounds good! sign me up for a review box.
 
snaggletooth said:
Q. How are you an industry leader?
A. We're the only company that offers a full-blown modern gaming rig comparible to major boutique builders which comes pre-loaded with an official C64 emulator so you can play your old favorites on a beautifully-airbrushed, modern, powerhouse pc.

Wow, that sounds good! sign me up for a review box.
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And that's how real, trained, professional PR agents work. If Dave wasn't suffering from cranial colonitis and gave that response then there wouldn't even be an article for Kyle to write. LOL

However, I think that this article is just since it safeguards customers from such BS. Journalism isn't about regurgitating PR BS. It's about the truth. If the truth is that Commodore is a bunch of assholes and they pick fights with journalists that ask question, then hats off to Kyle for telling us.
 
why is there even a 6 page discussion on this?

look at this way....

say you have 100 people coming to your door every day looking for something for free...

ok, so you deal with the usual BS that will come with that...until that one person piques your interest and you want to know more about "that fire last week that burned down my house"...and instead of giving you an answer, buddy pulls out a knife and wants blood...

i know it's a different scenario, but think about it....this guy wanted hardocp to post a PR (FOR FREE) that had more than your average BS (sorry, "marketing") in it, and kyle thought, well hey, if this thing does what it says, sure we'll post it, hell we may have to look further into this!....thats what hardocp does....

so what happens? if the postings by kyle are to be believed (which, why wouldn't they be? if he was lying it would cost him A LOT of money in legal fees - see the Phantom Labs "experiment" lol) then the guy gets pretty upset over, at this point, perfectly to the point questions....if you can find any rude/crudeness from the first points of contact....wow....i would say that you would be a little to thin skinned for....just about anything!

and i do blame the "pr guy" for setting the "tone" of the conversations...you sent out a PR to a potential "client"...yet if anyone questions you, you get a response of " Really, were you being serious? Just need to know if want a real answer on this one…" and then keeps on dodging the questions.

i know this is long, but holy shit people....don't bash kyle for getting upset when someone tries to use his site as a portal for bs....you should be thanking him...since when does kyle have to be professional to someone who is lying to him to use his site for free advertising....this is business people....he's not here to sing songs and everyone get along....

do some RESEARCH before you start dolling out bullshit to people who can see through it....
 
Hurray for Kyle and for integrity in general.

I really hope Commodore tries to take some sort of legal action against [H]ard|OCP. I don't think
they will, because if they know their history, they know that [H]ard|OCP has been pretty
successful with lawsuits in the past.

I hope Commodore gets pwned.
 
DemonDiablo said:
Personally I agree with desultadox, you were going way out of your way to pick a fight in a few of your responses. Nothing wrong about being frank, I'm all about being frank, but throwing out flamebait and then looking around trying to look innocent about it is a whole nother story.

To me it just looks like you're looking for a new small guy to pick on after the Phantom people. Let me ask you this, do you speak/type in that same candid tone to the bigger ups like Dell, Alienware, nVidia, etc. when they send you bs pr and you decide to challenge them on it?
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I've been a reader of the [H] since near the beginning...I've seen Kyle be rude and pick fights on numerous occasions...but this wasn't one of them. If the e-mails were in the correct order and none omitted (until the point Kyle says they were) then he was simply being direct and to the point. How is that "rude" and "picking a fight"?
 
desultadox said:
To be honest, even though I'm a big [H]ardOCP fan, I found Kyle's emails to be unjustifiably curt or even downright rude. I kind of think it's unprofessional to even post this, especially if it came from email outside of the press release. By not including ALL the emails, it's even borderline unethical. None of this seems fair at all; not to Commodore and not to [H]ardOCP readers.

On the flipside, do I believe a thing Commodore's PR had to say about their computers? Not at all.
Click to expand...

Are you serious? Where are your balls, and have you used them lately?
 
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