Hi Joe,
We're doing a couple of things differently now that may be confusing the likes of Ms. Fisher.
First, we're doing a lot with early access releases. We're allowing our developers and channel partners to hammer on new technologies before they're fully baked. The only drawback to this program is that the press also hears about these new technologies earlier in their life cycle and starts asking their standard how, what, when, where, and why. And frankly, some of those questions are tough to answer early in a product's existence. (We've also gotten a good deal of positive press on some of these technologies). All in all, the early access program is a good one and IMO, the benefits of getting developers up to speed on new code far outweigh the drawbacks of a confused journalist or two.
The second thing we're doing differently is trimming the time between releases by shipping more incremental updates to our products. That means replication may be in a spring release of IntranetWare where VPN and caching may be in a summer release. Again, I feel the benefits of incremental releases (if users want caching, let them have it when it's done, don't make them wait until each and every new feature is finished) far outweigh the drawbacks of holding everything for a major product release.
I hope this helps Joe.
Respectfully,
Kevin
(I work for Novell but my opinions are my own.) |
