I've told the tale before ... about having committed considerable manpower and resources into an ATMEL product only to learn after a year of ATMEL's obfuscation, that the thing only barely worked at all, and was ultimately withdrawn because almost none of the features that made it attractive were functional. What was appalling was that the ATMEL engineering team concealed and, in fact, absolutely lied about nearly everything about that product.

Let's hope they don't still have those same guys on staff. It's likely, however, as they were a French team, and IIRC, it's illegal to fire anyone no matter how dishonest or incompetent, in France.

RE