Hype Vaporware, Go To Jail?

Tim Dierks writes "The New York Times (registration required) has an article describing a federal case against executives in Enron's broadband data division, based upon the charge that Enron claimed that a software platform was more complete and more functional than it actually was. It seems to be that if this case holds up, most of the software industry is guilty. Would the world be better off or not if it was illegal to overpromote the functionality or features of software?"

Duke

[GhostChe]

Guess Duke Nukem Forever is really screwed...

Oh no!

[teamhasnoi]

I guess the new level in Duke Nukem Forever will be the 'Licence Plate Factory'.

But what will they call it?

[WalterDGeranios]

So much for billing Windows as an operating system.

Maybe they could just call it a "system."

Of course, it might be considered too non-deterministic for that. They could call it "Thing" and try to get exclusive rights to the word.

No big deal

[ENOENT]

It's just the executives who go to jail. That's one of the risks that go along with the insane salaries, bonuses, interest free loans that get forgiven when they become inconvient, stock options, etc.

Of course, if there were any real justice, every person in every marketing department everywhere would be forced to use nothing but vaporware to create their copy...

Weekly Staff Meetings

[dfn5]

I do this all the time in my weekly staff meetings.

Boss: How is that <insert latest project here> coming?
Me: Oh, I'm almost done
My Brain: Mental note. Start that damn project

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft does not sell vapourware.

All their new innovations have already been developed by someone else.

Makes sense...

[jabbadabbadoo]

...now that Enron itself turned out to be a vaporfirm.

Re:But what will they call it?

[Cruel Angel]

So would it be against the law to sell Microsoft Works?

Hmmm...

[M.C. Hampster]

Would the world be better off or not if it was illegal to overpromote the functionality or features of software?

Only if it's illegal to say that drinking a certain type of beer is going to get you more women.

Marketing People

[JSkills]

But my favorite move by the marketing guy, who after telling me he just sold some functionality/product/magic-button that doesn't exist to an advertiser and then me explaining to him how the project can't reasonably fit into the development schedule (or can even be done at all) is :

"So what do you want me to do? Give the $50,000 back to the advertiser?"

Never mind the agreement between the marketing team and our development team that marketing cannot promise a delivery date on anything before at least having a short conversation with us first - it can often be that surreal, on par with a Dilbert cartoon ...

Politicians are scre*wd now......

[DailyGrind]

Hey,

Is the software industry the only one that "overpromotes"?

see any weapons of mass distraction yet?

Re:Duke

[blibbleblobble]

"Besides, Battlecruiser 3000AD was Vaporware for like eight years"?

What's wrong with that? 997 years early...

Re:Duke

[Exedore]

Well, for one thing, in the case of DNF, no customer money is involved because no product has been released or sold yet.

In my opinion saying "This software is gonna be Teh Best EVAR," spending your own money to develop it, and then failing miserably might make you look stupid (Hi, John Romero!), but it's not a crime. Hyping a potential product to investors and using the money to line the pockets of company officials may be another matter altogether.

Re:Politicians are scre*wd now......

[Quixotic Raindrop]

Yes, I have. Slashdot is a weapon of mass distraction. As are comics.com, Battlefield 1942, Civilization III, Heinlen's Stranger in a Strange Land, and a whole slew of other items. Millions of people are distracted by them every day.

Re:Duke

[Spectre]

I find it amusing that you abbreviated "Duke Nukem Forever" as DNF ... when that is a common race abbreviation for "Did Not Finish" ...

The Software Development Process

[dreadlord76]

Developer: You can't Be Serious that they want all these features! I can deliver 10% of that if we're lucky. Manager: We'll Negotiate, but we should be able to deliver some of that in phase 1. The rest will have to wait. Marketing: We'll going to deliver all the features our competitor has, but with 1/3 the cost and 1/2 the time. Sales: Oh yeah! of course you will get the Thought Controller Interface for no additional charge. CFO: I need to book $50 million revenue for the current quarter for this project. CEO: Time to get more options from the board.

Re:Duke

[MrTangent]

If this is true, this is the end of Microsoft.