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Cyhist Jul 12 1996 B
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Sender: John Clark Subject: Re: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."
On Fri, 12 Jul 1996 Ersatzzz@aol.com wrote:
> I'm interested,
> though, both in early examples of vaporware, as
> well as more recent examples.
I've worked in telecomm startup's my whole career. In this
business, until recently, you had three clients, The Telephone Co.,
Banks and the Gov. so there's lots of room for deception. The usual grand
stunt I've seen pulled, is the affair, in which boxes are built with
blinking lights, and passed off as working product. This is common practice,
mostly the software works (sort of) but the hardware doesn't, so you get
another platform (like a PC) run the target code on it, and use a carefully
hidden connector to do the switcheroo. The cool product gos on top of the
display and the PC is under the table, or in a back room somewhere.
Once i saw this done with a cool ISDN video phone that was basically
brain dead. The real engine was a haywire board inside a monster PC.
The thing was so hot you could fry an egg on it! But no one ever
looked under the table and the trade show was a big success. In another
life i saw a small company saved by giving a realistic demo of a
sophisticated data link protocol, with real end user equipment that
actually required the protocol to operate. The whole thing was a complete
hoax, but the investors bought into it, and the company is still in business
today.
P.S. The data link protocol, finally, really did get developed and
is a standard and everything, can anyone guess?
>Generally, it seems Microsoft is often the company pointed to as a
>repeat offender in this area,
Jonny come lately's if you ask me.
> but this is obv. an industry-wide
> problem.
I'm not sure it's a problem. Look, what we have here is a very
innovative industry. We move very fast and thats how we stay ahead.
Sometimes its necessary, and desirable to release things prematurely
to see if there is really a market.
______________________________________________________________________
On Fri, 12 Jul 1996 Ersatzzz@aol.com wrote:
> I'm interested,
> though, both in early examples of vaporware, as
> well as more recent examples.
I've worked in telecomm startup's my whole career. In this
business, until recently, you had three clients, The Telephone Co.,
Banks and the Gov. so there's lots of room for deception. The usual grand
stunt I've seen pulled, is the affair, in which boxes are built with
blinking lights, and passed off as working product. This is common practice,
mostly the software works (sort of) but the hardware doesn't, so you get
another platform (like a PC) run the target code on it, and use a carefully
hidden connector to do the switcheroo. The cool product gos on top of the
display and the PC is under the table, or in a back room somewhere.
Once i saw this done with a cool ISDN video phone that was basically
brain dead. The real engine was a haywire board inside a monster PC.
The thing was so hot you could fry an egg on it! But no one ever
looked under the table and the trade show was a big success. In another
life i saw a small company saved by giving a realistic demo of a
sophisticated data link protocol, with real end user equipment that
actually required the protocol to operate. The whole thing was a complete
hoax, but the investors bought into it, and the company is still in business
today.
P.S. The data link protocol, finally, really did get developed and
is a standard and everything, can anyone guess?
>Generally, it seems Microsoft is often the company pointed to as a
>repeat offender in this area,
Jonny come lately's if you ask me.
> but this is obv. an industry-wide
> problem.
I'm not sure it's a problem. Look, what we have here is a very
innovative industry. We move very fast and thats how we stay ahead.
Sometimes its necessary, and desirable to release things prematurely
to see if there is really a market.
______________________________________________________________________
