[webproducers] Re: persuading a project manager that formal testing is important???
- From: Michael James Pinto <michaeljamespinto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: webproducers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 21:56:52 -0700 (PDT)
> --- 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
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