SEATTLE— The following transcript represents sworn testimony from the ongoing fraud trial against several major hardware manufacturers regarding the Microsoft Surface Ultra.
Q: Please state your full name and occupation for the court record.
A: My name is Arthur Pendelton. I serve as Senior Director of Unrealistic Expectations at Microsoft Corporation.
Q: Mr. Pendelton, did your team market the Microsoft Surface Ultra as a revolutionary device?
A: Yes, absolutely. We claimed it would single-handedly vaporize the competitor's market share overnight. We printed glossy brochures. We hired energetic influencers.
Q: Did the device actually achieve those claims during real-world testing?
A: Goodness no. The vapor chamber melted after twelve minutes of rendering a simple vector image. It also caught fire twice during the press launch.
Q: Yet you continued to claim the device possessed ultimate processing power?
A: Of course. That is standard industry procedure. If we only sold hardware that functioned as advertised, the entire global tech market would collapse in forty-eight hours.
Q: Are you testifying under oath that the entire laptop sector relies on outright fabrication?
A: Not fabrication, counsel. We prefer the term optimistic engineering. My colleague Dr. Helene Vasquez-Thorne, Lead Researcher at the Center for Studies That Confirm What You Already Suspected, confirmed that consumers actually prefer shiny metal bricks over working computers.
Q: So you intentionally shipped millions of flawed devices, including the Microsoft Surface Ultra, knowing they were inferior?
A: Inferior is a harsh word. We prefer to say it delivers on most of our promises. Specifically, the promise that it turns on and has a keyboard. We never promised it would run software efficiently.
Q: Did you apply this exact same philosophy to your upcoming tablet lineup as well?
A: At press time, I must decline to answer on the grounds that our next device is literally just a piece of painted cardboard sold for two thousand dollars.
