My OperaMsg to Microsoft - Hype is Not a Product
Friday, December 9, 2005 4:37:21 AM
PC World reported this week that the product development cycle for Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 has slipped but by how long is difficult to say.
Microsoft has been bombarding the computer trade press with news about the expected features of the new product, but the campaign has all the ear marks of vaporware. The vaporware tactic is designed to get end-users, especially large enterprises, to hold off making decisions to adopt technology from competitors in favor of a not yet shipped future application. The vaporware tactic is carried out by flooding the marketplace with news about the expected new product in ways that case a doubtful light on current products. It is a form of competition using smoke and mirrors. It is also called "ghosting."
The PC World story cites a posting on IEBlog, the Microsoft blog for its IE team, which says the company will post "an updated prerelease build of IE 7 for Windows XP publicly during the first calendar quarter of 2006." The posting was written by Dean Hachamovitch, product line manager for IE at Microsoft.
Microsoft attributes its decision to delay the rollout to "user requests" for an additional review cycle. Really?
Microsoft has been bombarding the computer trade press with news about the expected features of the new product, but the campaign has all the ear marks of vaporware. The vaporware tactic is designed to get end-users, especially large enterprises, to hold off making decisions to adopt technology from competitors in favor of a not yet shipped future application. The vaporware tactic is carried out by flooding the marketplace with news about the expected new product in ways that case a doubtful light on current products. It is a form of competition using smoke and mirrors. It is also called "ghosting."
The PC World story cites a posting on IEBlog, the Microsoft blog for its IE team, which says the company will post "an updated prerelease build of IE 7 for Windows XP publicly during the first calendar quarter of 2006." The posting was written by Dean Hachamovitch, product line manager for IE at Microsoft.
Microsoft attributes its decision to delay the rollout to "user requests" for an additional review cycle. Really?
