> --- Duane Douglas <email.lists@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > i've worked on a number of small commercial software projects where And I'll go one step further! In commercial software having the better product is a sure fire bet not to win. The "first and better" product will always die after the fast to market product with a larger advertising budget kicks ass. With commercial software there is always time to get better if marketing is leading the way in terms of budget. Products like Netscape Navigator, Word Perfect, Lotus 123, Aldus Persuasion, OS/2, the Lisa, ReadySetGo!, the Newton, HyperCard, Visicalc, Targa TIPS software, and the Altair should serve as a reminder that marketing is important - maybe more important than making it perfect. Also keep in mind that another hallmark of commercial software products is that they don't do everything that a user wants - otherwise they would be using custom software. The reason to buy commercial products is that you get 80% of your desired features for 20% of the price of custom software. Another odd thing about commercial products is that having worked on over a dozen commercial titles myself, I have yet to see any of them get past the 1.0 mark. I would see some titles get to that stage, but there were very few. In fact most commercial publishers need to get several titles out to market in a season, then they wait to for a winner - and then pick that title for an upgrade. Of course most of the titles that I worked on which sold were just put together with other titles at a discount by year two. By the way it's important to note that commercial software and custom software are very different subjects in terms of QA. In fact custom software seems to be about nothing else but testing, adding features and making changes to "get it right". Michael ===== M I C H A E L J A M E S P I N T O ------------------------------------------------------------ Where I Work: http://www.vm.com Support My Book Habit: http://www.fanboy.com More About Me: http://www.michaelpinto.com My Favorite Music: http://www.thefall.org Japanese Animation: http://www.anime.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com __________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a blank message with unsubscribe in the subject to webproducers-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To access our webform (instead of sending e-mail) for popular commands including subscribe, unsubscribe, digest, and vacation visit www.WebProducers.org. You can also access the list archive at the website. Questions and comments are welcome just e-mail me, morry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx