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If I hadn’t read this with my own eyes I wouldn’t have believed it. Talk about ‘clueless’…
Here is a stunning example of why the blogospheric cultural precepts of ‘transparency, honesty and openness’ are held in such high regard, at least by us bloggers - corporations might not be so entranced by them, as you will read.
To start this intriguing tale, there’s this:
“What happens when a VoIP blog writes about the fact that a former Nortel subsidiary (Blade Network Technologies) went looking for a new phone system, chose an open-source Asterisk-based solution from Fonality instead of using Nortel’s own PBX and then agreed to go on record on the VoIP & Gadgets blog about why they made such a shocking decision?”
You would be right to think either of these two possible answers:
“A) Nothing - it’s a VoIP blog - who cares? Nortel is an $11 billion dollar company that certainly doesn’t read blogs for their news.
“B) Nortel reads the blog post, is a little peeved, but other than some emails sent internally, no one outside Nortel would ever know they were annoyed.”
But you’d be wrong. There is a third possibility. A possibility so stunning in its idiocy in this age of lightning-speed, pan-global communication that you wonder if you are really reading an actual event, or something out of the keyboard of a third-rate business journalist.
“C) A Nortel Board Member flips out over the article, contacts Blade and then pressures Blade to return the Fonality system and have Fonality print a retraction to the blog article (and the subsequent press release).”
Interestingly, according to Blade’s website, Eric Schoch, the Vice President of Business Development for Nortel, serves on Blade’s board of directors. As Tom Keating reports,
“As if we needed any more proof of the power that the blogosphere holds, the fact that a Nortel executive took exception to my blog post and contacted Blade to apply pressure is almost beyond belief.”
You can read the whole sorry saga on Tom’s blog. It is staggering reading. Blade made the decision to go crazy at the executive level and make three decisions within 24 hours - to return it, then to not return it, then to return it again, all the while proclaiming that no outside interference was impacting on their decision.
As Mike from quicktrivia.com points out in a comment to Tom’s post,
“So now instead of a few people reading about a company switching to Asterisk, a million people will now read about how the staff at Nortel are a bunch of strong-arming jerks. Smooth move, Nortel! Enjoy your negative publicity…”
Indeed!
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