Fact Check

So we continue to have issues with some of the facts being presented in our IT class. I don't think it's beyond reasonable to expect that our professors will have the latest and most accurate information. Sure, in our Strategy class last year, we may have had older information and cases (some dating back to the 1970s) but the information was included because it had retained its relevance over time.

Not so for our IT class. This is our third session and already the professor has based his lectures on information that is not only dated but also inaccurate:

1. He claimed the total sales at Wal-Mart were in the neighborhood of $175 billion. In fact it was $397.3 billion.
2. He claimed that Apple had the largest market capitalization of any technology company. In fact, Apple is #3 behind Microsoft and IBM.
3. He claimed you could only buy Dell computers online, using Dell's direct model. In fact, Dell now sells PCs through Best Buy stores as well.
4. He claimed you couldn't buy M&M's online. In fact the company has offered custom-printed M&M's on its website for years.
5. He asked, "Who ships anything via next-day shipping anymore?" Um, how about just about everyone in business?!?
6. He claimed, "everything Microsoft has, Apple had years ago." I'm not even going to touch that one, it's so uninformed.

It would be different if he were espousing items we couldn't easily check online, but this is pretty basic stuff.

Sigh.