The demos are deliberately falsified. Knowingly, by Sales, Engineering, and executive management in collusion. To make the products appear more complete than they are, more ready for use, more ready to buy; and let the customer be surprised after their check has cleared.

In planning, these phrases are actually spoken out loud: "slight of hand", "smoke and mirrors", "demoware", "create the illusion that", "faked".

It's not so much cynicism as desperation. The strategy is to bag the revenue today, create the product tomorrow. It's helpless, but it's all they have.