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As read by the author

Competitor? What competitor?

As read by the author Rob Rosenberger, Vmyths co-founder
Tuesday, 26 March 2002

MARKETING DROIDS IN this industry never cease to amuse me.

Not very bright of Brightmail, eh?
Take Brightmail, for example. Their website declares "we're the only message management company with an anti-spam and anti-virus fighting facility that is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year." I stumbled over this claim while doing some research. Brightmail's claim flies in the face of MessageLabs — another message management company with an anti-spam and anti-virus fighting facility that is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

In fact I praised MessageLabs' support crew in a special Christmas Day column. I asked spokesmodel Alex Shipp to comment on his competitor's chest-thumping:

I'd have to say that their marketing guys didn't do much research before they put their page together. They should probably talk to their CEO, who certainly knows about us. There are other companies in the same field as well, and while I don't know for sure whether they also have a 24x7 operation...
You can't really argue with Shipp on this point. Last month, for example, MessageLabs CTO Mark Sunner gave a speech on "how to provide carrier class email filtering of viruses, spam and pornographic material" right after BrightMail CTO Ken Schneider gave a speech on "content filtering solutions." You'd think Schneider would at least know of Sunner if not know him personally. I mean, c'mon: CTOs get paid to keep their firms on top of competitors & technologies.

Methinks Schneider schlipped up somewhere with his not-so-bright marketing team.

Panda Software used to pull this same marketing trick on Sophos. "Competitor? What competitor?" So I called Brightmail for a clarification. Linda Smith Munyan offered a candid response to my query: she doesn't know why they make such a claim on their website. I suspect they'll look into it.

Hmph. I don't know about you, but a 24/7/365 support crew just doesn't impress me much these days. I wish Brightmail would give me something useful to talk about — you know, like a 100% virus detection guarantee. "Well, Schneider...?"