Here’s part of Plain Text’s first newsletter, published in 2001.
In it, we railed against technology jargon by composing an imaginary tech industry press release, then ‘translating’ it into language ordinary folk could understand.
Why repost it now? Because nearly 13 years on, we still encounter this stuff everyday. Musn’t grumble, of course – it keeps copywriters in business.
So the challenge is – can you find anything in the real world that’s even worse than the this imaginary press release?
If you can, let us know. And we’ll leverage your answer synergistically by reaching out to a broad constituency of stakeholders.
Press release – draft 1
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Prolix announces VPL-compatible integration management module with upgraded scalability potential
London, UK 6 September 2001 – Prolix, the global integration management leadership technology solutions provider, today announced the release of WA4L(TM), a VPL-compatible integration management module for complex disparate systems. Leveraging the power of Base-Level Architecture Hierarchies BLAH(SM), WA4L(TM) enables enterprise-wide integration management with enhanced scalability for information-driven organisations.
“Successful, timely, accurate, scalable, robust, flexible, and extensible integration management architectures are essential to today’s enterprises, especially those with complex disparate systems’ said Max Wordcount, Prolix CEO. Using the power of BLAH(SM) and WA4L(TM), I believe that Prolix has established an unrivalled industry benchmark for integration management that provides an immense range of benefits for information-intensive enterprises. WA4L(SM) will be of particular benefit to enterprises with wide-area VPL implementations that have under-leveraged synergies and ongoing scalability implications.”
Gunter Verböss, chair of the cross-border Forum for Leadership in Integration Management Foundation’s Local Area Management committee (FLIMFLAM), commented: “FLIMFLAM is very excited by WA4L(TM) and BLAH(SM). Prolix are enabling the transmission of cross-sector-scale benefits to the integration management industry, and helping us to push the envelope of benchmark-establishment. The complex disparate systems integration community will also welcome this development.”
WA4L(TM) is available with immediate effect for cross-geography shipping and dissemination.
About Prolix
Prolix is the global integration management leadership technology solutions provider. Its proprietary BLAH(SM) technology, combined with leading-edge integration management applications such as WA4L(TM) and PR8(TM), and supported by its state-of-the-art BLEtherNet infrastructure, enables information-intensive enterprises to fully leverage their existing information and technology assets in a flexible, extensible, scalable, and managed process.
Press release – draft 2
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Does waffle help companies make money?
Award-winning software developer Prolix has today released WA4L(TM), an innovative programme that helps companies to integrate different computer systems easily. WA4L(TM) takes care of integration no matter how many systems a company has, or how much they grow, removing at a stroke the immense effort needed to keep them working together.
Prolix customer Ian Tegratian, IT director of Exasystems, explained: “WA4L(TM) may have a silly name but it has been fantastically useful for us. Before we installed it, routine, repetitive integration management tasks were taking up far too of my department’s time. And no-one enjoyed them. We are now all free to do what we do best: coming up with creative ways to make Exasystems products more competitive. We’re already seeing an upturn in orders.”
Max Relevance, COO of Prolix, added: “It’s great to see results already from our new product. Our experience so far indicates that investment in WA4L(TM) can pay itself back in two months and start contributing to the bottom line in three. This is a first for this type of software, and it would not have been possible without involving customers like Ian in the development process. So yes, it would seem that WA4L can help companies make money!”
About Prolix
Prolix helps companies to integrate different computer systems so that they can get the most out of their IT investments. Its products have won ‘Best in show’ at the prestigious GoodSoft awards for the last two years, and are used by 120 organisations worldwide, including 25 of the UK’s FTSE-100 companies.
New flagship product WA4L(TM) is based on Prolix’s proprietary BLAH(SM) (Base-level architecture hierarchies) technology, which creates a platform for automating the integration of different systems. Smaller sites can achieve similar benefits with the PR8(SM) product, whilst all Prolix customers can take advantage of its secure infrastructure called BLEtherNet.