nachos bellgrande (part 2)

i've been tasked with finding a new billing system for work and so i've had to look at all kinds of demos and screenshots and boring sales fluff. just as with all the software on freshmeat and other sites, screenshots tell everything about an application. i can quickly see what features it has, how complicated the interface looks, and how professional it is. if it looks like some cheesy foxpro or visual basic application with a hideous interface, i can tell the backend is probably just as bad and isn't worth wasting my time.

i wanted to look at one system today and had to fill out a form to request a demo. after i did, i just received a "sales will contact you shortly" message instead of a link to the demo. sure enough, within a few minutes i had someone calling me to setup an hour-long "webinar" to preview their software.

i must say, one word i hate more than "blog" and all associated forms ("moblog", "blogosphere", etc.) is the word "webinar."

since i'm a busy guy and want to finish this task quickly, i told the lady that i wanted to see the demo now. she said she couldn't now, and that she'd have to setup this "webinar" and i'd have to see it tomorrow. then she asked if i had any questions that she could answer now ("i don't have an hour, but i have a few minutes to answer some questions"), but how can i have questions if i haven't even seen the product yet or been given any information at all?