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Cyhist Jul 14 1996 F
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Sender: Murphy@SBAServ.SBA.UConn.Edu (Murph Sewall)
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of word "vaporware"
On 7/14/96 11:26 PM, Richard Brodie wrote:
>I believe "vaporware" was coined by Esther Dyson in her industry
>newsletter RELease 1.0 to describe Microsoft Windows
The term "vaporware" is older than that I believe. From May 1984 through
April 1993, I wrote a monthly column titled "Vaporware" about--guess what.
The last 5 years of that column were widely distributed on the Internet
(compiling it finally started to get in the way of the "day job"--that is,
my life :-)
I got the term from a Wall Street Journal article a month or two before the
introduction of IBM's PCjr--then code named "Peanut" (was that Spring
'84?). An executive from Atari was complaining about how difficult it was
to interest consumers in new models because everyone was waiting for IBM to
introduce their heavily rumored "home PC." As I recall, the quote was
something like, "It's hard enough competing with hardware and software
without also having to compete with vaporware!"
I suspect the term is older than that article. I remember thinking at the
time that it was a rather obvious derivative. There is a small amount of
(fairly recent) marketing literature (both academic and utilitarian) about
"pre-announced" products. The practice of announcing either officially or
by rumor, new products in an attempt to persuade customers to defer
committing to a competitor's product dates back 40 years or more.
In the computing business, IBM routinely announced specifications for
products it didn't plan to ship for months or years. The practice figures
prominently in the anti-trust case against IBM (my memory dates that to the
1960s, but the case may have started in the 50's and the practices that led
Justice to file would be even older). In addition to preempting the
market, IBM was interested in lining up developers so that as much
attractive software as possible would be available for the new machines
when they did ship (a concept that continues today).
/s Murphy A. Sewall (860) 486-2489 voice
Professor of Marketing (860) 456-7725 fax
http://mktg.sba.uconn.edu/MKT/Faculty/Sewall.html
______________________________________________________________________
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of word "vaporware"
On 7/14/96 11:26 PM, Richard Brodie wrote:
>I believe "vaporware" was coined by Esther Dyson in her industry
>newsletter RELease 1.0 to describe Microsoft Windows
The term "vaporware" is older than that I believe. From May 1984 through
April 1993, I wrote a monthly column titled "Vaporware" about--guess what.
The last 5 years of that column were widely distributed on the Internet
(compiling it finally started to get in the way of the "day job"--that is,
my life :-)
I got the term from a Wall Street Journal article a month or two before the
introduction of IBM's PCjr--then code named "Peanut" (was that Spring
'84?). An executive from Atari was complaining about how difficult it was
to interest consumers in new models because everyone was waiting for IBM to
introduce their heavily rumored "home PC." As I recall, the quote was
something like, "It's hard enough competing with hardware and software
without also having to compete with vaporware!"
I suspect the term is older than that article. I remember thinking at the
time that it was a rather obvious derivative. There is a small amount of
(fairly recent) marketing literature (both academic and utilitarian) about
"pre-announced" products. The practice of announcing either officially or
by rumor, new products in an attempt to persuade customers to defer
committing to a competitor's product dates back 40 years or more.
In the computing business, IBM routinely announced specifications for
products it didn't plan to ship for months or years. The practice figures
prominently in the anti-trust case against IBM (my memory dates that to the
1960s, but the case may have started in the 50's and the practices that led
Justice to file would be even older). In addition to preempting the
market, IBM was interested in lining up developers so that as much
attractive software as possible would be available for the new machines
when they did ship (a concept that continues today).
/s Murphy A. Sewall (860) 486-2489 voice
Professor of Marketing (860) 456-7725 fax
http://mktg.sba.uconn.edu/MKT/Faculty/Sewall.html
______________________________________________________________________
