Well, it didn't completely fail yet. It's still going 13 years after I left, actually. But part of the struggles were brought on by my mistake with a military customer that probably cost us the contract.

This was back at the beginning of the Iraq war. Our main contact told me the US should attack France, as they weren't supporting the invasion. I made the mistake of saying I was glad he was executing policy, not making it.

Oops. They started migrating to another product. Oh well.

Lesson is, if you're going to object to what a customer thinks, do it when its your own company. It's not really fair to make such a choose for everybody at your company. Kind of self indulgent, actually.

And people are entitled to their opinions and my mouthing off didn't change anything. An exercise in futility that only cost us.