Re: [escepticos] RE: Bill Gates

["Victor R. Ruiz" <rvr@...>]

  Hola:

> Basta Bill hacer anuncios tipo "vaporware" (como a veces creo que lo ha
> hecho), y que inmediatamente desestimula a cualquier otro que
> potencialmente estaba pensando hacerlo.

  Les paso esto, de ZDNet.

Vapor: Where? 
By Mary Jo Foley 
May 20, 1998 
Sm en rt Reseller 
 
  

 An issue at the heart of the myriad legal suits with which Microsoft has 
found itself surrounded of late is vaporware.

 To Micro'oft's credit, it is making efforts to attack the vapor problem 
head-on. To its detriment, it's going about this in some very questionable 
ways.

 The Software Publishers Association, Caldera, Sun are documenting 
instances when Microsoft's promised but answered products and features -- 
a.k.a. vaporware -- have affected negatively Microsoft's competitors. The 
SPA made prohibitions against vaporware one of the eight software industry 
principles of competition that the company proposed publicly earlier this 
year. A good chunk of Caldera's continuing private legal antitrust case 
against Microsoft revolves around the negative impact that Microsoft's 
vaporish MS-DOS 4.0 had on Caldera's DR-DOS product. And, even though Sun 
has not made vaporware claims part of its ongoing Java suit, it wouldn't 
be much of a stretch to say that Microsoft's compatibility, purity and 
interoperability claims regarding Visual J++ are likely to figure 
prominently as the case moves forward.

 As these suits suggest, vaporware is not a matter to be taken lightly. It 
has driven more than one software developer and reseller out of business, 
as we note in this week's Sm en rt Reseller cover story. Microsoft is only 
one of many offenders; just about every big industry player can be 
accused. Because the problem is so severe and widespread, proposed 
solutions shouldn't be quick fixes.

 Microsoft officials say they are taking the vaporware bull by the horns 
by making product upgrades more frequent and less all-encompassing and by 
attempting to plug date and feature leaks. Both of these strategies sound 
admirable until you think them through.

 Microsoft, Novell and other software vendors have been talking for years 
about making software available on a subscription basis. Microsoft already 
does this to some extent with its Microsoft Developers Network CDs. But 
with resellers and their customers already complaining of upgrade 
overload, will many people want to receive their operating systems 
piecemeal over a period of months or years? True, it will help avoid the 
current problem of gargantuan OS releases slipping by months, if not 
years. But how are companies supposed to digest and manage this process? 
If Microsoft has a solution, it has not shared yet.

 Then there's the issue of stopping product rumors before they start. As a 
journalist, this one really hits close to home. Part of our trade is 
finding out about products before vendors have a chance to "spin" them. As 
a result, many in the industry say we are a big contributor to the 
vaporware problem.

 In recent months, Microsoft has tried the tack of not releasing ship date 
information publicly until the product is within three months of shipping. 
Under this regime, while the handful of companies lucky enough to 
participate in activities like the NT 5.0 Rapid Deployment Program will be 
privy to dates, most developers, resellers and users will not. Although 
Microsoft has not stated how or if it will punish those who are caught 
leaking dates, the threat of losing NDA privileges on key products could 
be enough to restrict further the product information flow.

 

 

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---------------------------------------------
Víctor R. Ruiz                rvr en idecnet.com
    Agrupación Astronómica de Gran Canaria
   Sociedad de Meteoros y Cometas de España
 Asociación de Variabilistas de España - AVE
info.astro  http://www.astrored.org/infoastro
http://ccdis.dis.ulpgc.es:8086/AAGC/aagc.html
---------------------------------------------