Microsoft finance slang defines the eternal optimist: The 'hockey stick on wheels'

Microsoft's finance division has a term for an overly optimistic projection that seems to march backward year after year: the hockey stick on wheels. The hockey stick graph will be familiar to anyone who's seen those wildly optimistic forecasts from companies or consultants promising that, yes, growth may be flat or negative …

[jake]

Here in the RealWorld we have another term for the same thing.

We call it "Complete Bollocks".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Here in the RealWorld we have another term for the same thing.

Assuming it’s Ice Hockey and not Field Hockey or that would’ve some statistical bollocks.

[b0llchit]

The hockey stick figure is also known as Delusions at the financial department.

[Jellied Eel]

The hockey stick figure is also known as Delusions at the financial department.

I think that's a bit unfair, and it's often the finance departments that put the brakes on hockey sticks. So like the article says, those often come from sales & marketing and are presented with a.. large amount of optimism. Especially when finance overlays the sales forecasts with cashflow, capex, opex, margin etc and points to the inflexion point at which the company starts sliding into bankruptcy. Along with pointed questions, like addressable market size, expected share of the market etc etc.

I think my favorite example came from mobile phones. When those went mainstream, there was much hype.. But often overlooking a boring little detail, like sales would be constrained by the number of people who want a mobile phone.. Which is kind of Apple's problem. Everyone who wants an iPhone probably has one already, and because current phones are good enough for most people, the market for new phones shrinks to replacements, or a small percent that want the latest & greatest. Which is probably why the last couple of iPhone launches have flopped a bit. New iPhone? Got one already*, thanks. Plus the effects of tariffs in making those more expensive for US users.

*Well, my phone's an Android, and good enough for how I use it. At some point, my provider might persuade me to get a 'free' upgrade, but that's mostly an ARPU trick to maintain revenues once existing phones are paid off, at which point the finance element drops out of the monthly charge and my RPU drops.

[Doctor Syntax]

Your phone example is an instance of another delusion - that all projections assume exponential growth, not sigmoidal and the further delusion that the sales will represent the growth of the market even when the product is a durable in which case they're the first derivative.

[Jellied Eel]

Your phone example is an instance of another delusion - that all projections assume exponential growth, not sigmoidal and the further delusion that the sales will represent the growth of the market even when the product is a durable in which case they're the first derivative.

Indeed. I remember when I learned about sigmoid functions, and how much of reality follows that, and exponential growth is actually pretty rare. Part of the product/service lifecyle might look exponential at first blush, but it's never going to stay that way. Something almost always constrains growth, like in my line of work, a regulator going 'Hey! you have a monopoly!'. Which is back to good finance types and modellers because then we can test assumptions and find out sensitivities.

[David Hicklin]

> Something almost always constrains growth

There, fixed it for you. You don't need a regulator putting their oar in (and most act to late anyway) but a finite planet will always constrain growth at some point, well that or a more agile competitor getting in because you are now so big that you have turned into a dinosaur

[W.S.Gosset]

>an ARPU trick to maintain revenues once existing phones are paid off

Android has actually built one of those into the Android code.

After 12mths, the minimum freespace required to install an app, or even update an existing one, switches from TheSpaceNeeded, to a minimum of ~ 1 gigabyte. It's explicitly done on the calendar date and on that size (at least for the older Androids -- they've probably bumped it up for the newer versions as the phones get "bigger").

So after a while, people get stuck with apps they can't even update, and then as new "up"dates are demanded for poorly-thought-out data/api accesses, more and more apps become simply unusable.

[Jellied Eel]

So after a while, people get stuck with apps they can't even update, and then as new "up"dates are demanded for poorly-thought-out data/api accesses, more and more apps become simply unusable.

Wow. I hope that's been fixed because it seems a very shady thing to do. Free space is free space and there should be no reason to age that out. I've not been caught byy that, although notificatons for updates can get a tad annoying, especially for apps I don't use. But also an opportunity to uninstall those, or at least try to. Luckily I don't use many apps, mainly just one to summon a taxi.

[W.S.Gosset]

>Wow. I hope that's been fixed

The only change I've seen is that they've now actually acknowledged in their doco that that's what they do.

NB: if you know someone in that situation, who's about to bite the bullet and start wiping apps to achieve 1gb, WARN THEM THAT ONLY WORKS FOR 24 HOURS,

UNLESS:

* they enable the Developer Settings (fast-tap half a dozen or so times on some icon in Settings I can't remember right now -- google it)

* they switch OFF auto-update of the System/OS, in those developer-settings.

If they don't do this, the following day they'll discover they've been "up"dated/downgraded/downdated to the maximum size OS that Android can squeeze into the space. This normally re-removes the ability to install/update, AND Android's RAM footprint just keeps getting massivefatter and massivefatter, so their perfectly fine & zippy phone will be reduced to essentially a crawling single-app non-multitasker: slow as a wet weekend.

[Paul Herber]

I'm sure there is a puck joke in there somewhere.

[steelpillow]

Why don't you go take a running puck at a rolling hockey stick?

[Korev]

> I'm sure there is a puck joke in there somewhere.

Well if that's your goal...

[jake]

I knew there'd be something of value between the posts.

[Korev]

Sounds like you need to pitch your idea

[David 132]

I approve of your puckish sense of humour.

[that one in the corner]

Don't be rude about his PowerPoint slide; take that bully off the screen.

[Aladdin Sane]

Give yer balls a tug

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't know about puck, but did hear one about peaseblossom at the rugger...

[ParlezVousFranglais]

Tell the finance team to puck right off...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microspeak, the variant of English spoken at Microsoft

An ressemblance of this creole of bollocks and codswallop to the language spoken on the right side of pond is enitrely coincidental and invariably misleading.

Complete horse hockey.

Hockey stick on wheels more a clogged U–bend on skids.

[Christoph]

Fusion power has been on wheels for decades! Always 30 years away.

[Aladdin Sane]

Don't worry, this WILL the year of desktop Linux.

[jake]

To be fair, Slackware has been my primary desktop for about 32 years now.

::shrugs::

[Aladdin Sane]

To be fair

[Alan Bourke]

Will it?

I thought it was 'flying cars imminent' or was it 'Excel is dead' this year?

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: Will it?

I'll check my Tomorrow's World Annual 1990.

[ComicalEngineer]

If were talking about Fantasy Island...

Microsoft will produce a bug free, stable operating system...

... Said no-one.

Ever

[Manolo]

Hockey stick graduation

Zze Fazzer: "When will you graduate?"

Me: "September"

Come September: "I did not say which year September".