Hmmmm.. enough bashing of Marketing. Marketing is despised because it so WEAK and understaffed in most high-tech companies.
It may not be a respected profession, but I also work in Product Management. For those younger members looking for a career in high-tech, be warned that Product Manager is generally looked at as "the worst job in the company". It's NOT for the squeamish. No one works for you, so you can't tell anyone what to do, yet you have total responsibility for delivery of EVERYTHING-- the product, all marketing activities/collateral/programs, AND you are responsible for the satisfaction of your customers. Oh yeah, all the people you work with on a daily basis, the engineers, will secretly hate you simply because you work in Marketing. Nothing personal you see.
Here is what I have learned (the hard way) about engineers:
1. Double every estimate for how long Engineering says it will take to complete ANY project.
2. Engineering will NEVER tell you that they are falling behind schedule until a particular milestone is upon them. Is this what happened to the Redrose Product Manager? It is a common ploy for Marketing to set a publicly announced date for launch of a product as a forcing function to get the engineers focused on delivering something ON TIME.
3. Never, ever, ever let an engineer design or create the requirements for a product, especially if that product will not be used by other engineers. Ergonomics? Ease of use? We don't DO that....
4. Engineers will only do the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM necessary to be able to look you in the eye and tell you "yes, we've completed that". It will not be implemented in the best manner possible, just the easiest for them.
5. When in doubt, always blame the customer. Hey, it works here in the lab. Must be an operator error!
All those gripes aside, I have a tremendous respect for almost all engineers I've worked with. They really are the best minds on the planet. They are asked to do superhuman things on a daily basis, and come through more often than not.
markl