To: Douglas Nordgren who wrote (3871 ) 8/16/2001 4:06:59 AM From: Gus Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 4808 ....From alpha to OEM volume shipments in three months seems a mite optimistic LOL, I know. Brocade is also cramming the ASIC with all kinds of goodies as part of their master plan to siphon intelligence from servers and storage in order to prevent commodification. Below are useful definitions of the alpha and beta testing stages. ALPHA VERSION Last modified: June 22, 2001 A very early version of a software product that may not contain all of the features that are planned for the final version. Typically, software goes through two stages of testing before it is considered finished. The first stage, called alpha testing, is often performed only by users within the organization developing the software. The second stage, called beta testing , generally involves a limited number of external users. pcwebopedia.com BETA TESTING Testing a pre-release (potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software by making it available to selected users. This term derives from early 1960s terminology for product cycle checkpoints, first used at IBM but later standard throughout the industry. "Alpha test" was the unit, module, or component test phase; "Beta Test" was initial system test. These themselves came from earlier A- and B-tests for hardware. The A-test was a feasibility and manufacturability evaluation done before any commitment to design and development. The B-test was a demonstration that the engineering model functioned as specified. The C-test (corresponding to today's beta) was the B-test performed on early samples of the production design. An item "in beta test" is thus mostly working but still under test. In the Real World, systems (hardware or software) often go through two stages of release testing: Alpha (in-house) and Beta (out-house?). Beta releases are generally made available to a small number of lucky (or unlucky), trusted customers. (1996-11-05) burks.bton.ac.uk