From the Editor
Extend the Product Cycle
O
ver the past few years network managers and LAN administrators have had to cope with a never-ending series of hardware and software upgrades, revisions, fixes, and service packs. Just when you finally configured that new PC and server to participate on the LAN and become reachable via the corporate frame relay connection, it seems that one or more vendors will announce a new product with great fanfare or place a software patch or service pack on their Web site with minimal notification, even though such software may be what is necessary to correct one or more problems your network users periodically encounter.
While it is just plain wrong to hamper innovation, I sincerely believe product cycles are far too short. By the time an organization appears to have evaluated, installed, learned to work with and trained their base of end-users to work with version x of a product, typically version xC1 or x.1 is announced. This rush to the marketplace with ever-decreasing product life cycles is most expensive for organizations in terms of training, budgeting, and effort. While truly innovative products will always find a receptive audience, do we really need three-month, six-month, or even yearly product upgrades? In my opinion vendors would better serve their customer base by better planning the features to incorporate into their major product releases and by extending the time between releases. This approach will also allow them the luxury of time to do that 'minor' item that most vendors forget about -consult with their customer base to determine those features users of their products would like to have in future revisions! As a beta tester of several popular software programs, I am always amazed that many vendors release a new upgrade for testing to its cadre of testers without asking them for feedback concerning features to place in the next release. While beta testing is primarily oriented towards locating bugs, those testers also have the experience of working with the product over a period of cycles that could be put to good use to denote potential product changes. Perhaps if vendors would focus their attention more on the features of their products and obtain greater feedback from customers and testers instead of keeping their eyes on the competitor's product cycle, we wouldn't have the large number of patches, fixes, recovery modules, and service packs to apply. As my Macon TV announcer would say: 'That's my opinion. What's yours?' -Gilbert Held