Some press releases should never be written. Such as announcing that your CAD software is being used to design cluster bombs. Or, cigarettes, as does the cover letter to this morning's press release from PTC's pr firm [koff, koff]:
Today PTC announced that Changde Tobacco Machinery Co., Ltd, China’s leading tobacco machinery manufacturer, has selected Windchill as its corporate standard for product data management.
I'm not sure why you would want to be tied to a dying business (in both senses of the word). Reading the next paragraph... I'm sorry, all I see are clouds of smoke (in both senses of the word):
Ultimately, Changde Tobacco wanted to reduce product research and development (R&D) cycle time and minimize duplicate design while maintaining high product quality and innovative capabilities.
Yah, let's get those lung-cloggers out there ever more efficiently. I wonder if athletes arriving in the Olympic Village next summer will receive complimentary packs of cigs.
Did you know that European trains no longer have smoking and nonsmoking sections? Passenger cars are now segregated into cell-phone and no-cell-phone sections. The progressive continent of Europe is finally shutting down smoking in all public places -- more than a decade after my home province of British Columbia did.
One man's untouchable item is another's man's bread and butter. Smoking is legal and many people do enjoy it despite the health risks.
There is always someone who does not like what or how a particular product is made or what its effects are. What if your CAD system was used to make fur coats, deep friers for food, nuclear power plants, nuclear bombs, cruise missiles, chemical fertilizers, handguns, oil drilling rigs - all are products that some feel are a detriments to people, society or the environment
Press releases are usually just fluff. But they are trying to convey to potential customers that their product is capable and robust. And having many different customers, including cigarette and bomb manufactures, does convery that.
Posted by: Len | Nov 21, 2007 at 07:53 AM