Hype Vaporware, Go To Jail? 369
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?"
Vaporware is Critical (Score:4, Interesting)
Definition of Vaporware? (Score:4, Interesting)
Legislating truthful business practices (Score:2, Interesting)
Sure! (Score:4, Interesting)
How about we apply the same logic to overstated legal claims, too? Especially those designed to spread FUD about a particular product, hmm?
Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
The organization had a LOT of sharp engineers. Unfortunately, the management was completely incompetent and didn't allow many of the better engineers to have a say in functional requirements/technical specifications.
There was also a disturbingly bad attitude that pervaded the works at EBS as well. Case in point: during one meeting, I made the point that the service level metrics they were using were horribly vague. I didn't believe we should do business like that (goodwill is, I think, an important concept in business), but their response was "oh, if they'res a problem, we'll just sick our lawyers on them." Assholes.
Closed Source vs Open Source answer (Score:2, Interesting)
Closed Source projects would be mostly 'at risk', as they can claim to do anything without simple review by the user/the masses to make sure of this.
Open Source, however.. the client has the code, and can determine for themselves, or have determined by others, that the program will or will not live up to any claims.
In other words - yet another instance where Open Source would be exempt from common practice based on the premise that if somebody has the code then they have the means to verify, bugfix, adjust and invetigate claims themselves.
Only a commercial software problem.. (Score:2, Interesting)
"Buyer Beware"
Rampant (Score:5, Interesting)
Boy, this sort of behavior is rampant among companies small and large. I have known several small software companies whose sales divisions were always making promises that were not grounded in reality. Promised functionality that had simply been discussed, but was not actually in code at the time. I'd say to the sales managers, "what the hell are you doing?" to which they would reply, "making sales".
That was hugely dissapointing for me as I would much prefer a product based sales strategy where something is not announced until it is ready as opposed to a timeline driven or sales driven paradigm where products tend to be pre-announced and then released half-assed.
Only a matter of time (Score:5, Interesting)
In the case of damaging actions which are currently part of accepted business practices, I think we'll start to see the law come around. I'm particularly interested in when the first major lawsuit against Microsoft will appear for lost business due to mass internet slowdowns from Outlook virus propogation.
I just clicked over from MacMinute, where they reported the BugBear virus had slowed the
Vaporware isn't just an idea sometimes (Score:5, Interesting)
Good - Let 'em burn! (Score:2, Interesting)
For example, if I were to buy a car that was advertised at getting 80 MPG, I'd
*EXPECT* 80 MPG!
What is even worse than that is, you can't take the software product back!! (Or at least I have NOT found a store around here that'll take the product back)
Re:Duke (Score:3, Interesting)
Investors? Investors?
Why is investors money more important than Customer's money? In fact, screw the investors. If customers' money is stolen through vaporware, then the investors are not the ones who are wronged the most. The customers were screwed. If this adversely affects the value of the company, then the investors have a different cause of action due to the bad management that did a criminal wrong and resulting in harm to investors.
Re:Vaporware is Critical (Score:4, Interesting)
Corporate vaporware is when a company not only announces, but blatently promises to deliver a product, and never does. This is bad not only for the company's reputation, but for the industry and consumers, who prepare for and anticipate those "promised" products. However, it's the companies own fault for hyping something and not delivering.
Media vaporware is differant. This is when a company floats a concept for potential software around, and somehow the media gets ahold of it. Suddenly, X company is working on Y product that will "revolutionize the modern computing experience," despite it's entire existance on a cocktail napkin thrown out of an executive session. This is dangerous for obvious reasons- now the companies reputation is in the hands of a third party, unbeknownst to them. Rumors start that a product is under development. Company denies product exists. Media reports company is scrapping project, even though it never existed. In this case, the company can not be held responsible for anything, since it's strictly the media which hypes, regardless of what the company says.
Both are bad for the industry and the consumer, but the latter is worse, since it's out of the control of the company.
Ask Germany (Score:4, Interesting)
I would expect that the Greman readers of
Whin I lived there in the early Late 70's, early 80's one of the cultural differences between Germany and the United States that stood out was that the law prohibited making false claims, and was strictly enforced. If Volkswagen claimed that it's car was better than Ford of Germany, it has better be specific, and provable, not just opinion, inference, subjection.
And the Government took great joy in persuit.
So would software be better if it had to tell the truth? Again, Ask Germany.
Re:Duke (Score:5, Interesting)
Another example of puffery that goes too far: weight loss pills. The FTC recently persued over 30 diet pill manufacturers for making entirely false claims. Have you seen in a magazine, the advert where there are side-by-side pictures of before and after using a product. The FTC realized that these before and after shots were really airbrushed, processed, computerized, or somehow otherwise altered. In many cases, the before and after shots didn't even have the same people; the head of a fit person was grafted onto the body of an obese person. This is blatant false advertising.
There is a difference between false advertising and puffery. False advertising is when claims made are false in entirety. Microsoft does have functional security; it is just far more lax and insecure than they admit.
Re:Vaporware is Critical (Score:1, Interesting)
Lying to Investors vs. Lying to Customers (Score:2, Interesting)
Forward looking statements (Score:3, Interesting)
Software industry problems (Score:4, Interesting)
At one company a number of years ago (who shall remain nameless), I was told by my manager to cut my schedule in half. This should be based on hireing 3 new engineers (doubling my staff). And then she said it did not matter if they were actually hired (we had no reqs for them) because it was expected that software schedules will slip.
I the other side I have not been selected for several very interesting projects as an engineer because I was honest with the manager about the chances of success on time. I would not commit to having a product on a data I knew could not be achived. On at least two of these I was brought in in the end to try and work some of the problems out. One was so badly done I left for another company rather than be stuck with it.
Since then I have been just and engineer on a couple of projects and back in the low level manager / project architect position on a couple others. I now have an MBA and more training in project managment. I still do not know how to adaqutly bring the two levels together.
The MBA tought me some basic business information which has helped me alot. It also tought lots about managing employees that I beleive are more contributors to the problem than solutions. And I think this is the basic problem with Enron Broadband screw up.
Enron is just one example of the problem. The whole dot com crap more of the same. Most of it starts with somebody who has an idea, builds a business case for it and downplays all the problems. Expectations to investors are set that are unrealistic due to lack of business sense. Investors put money into it no understanding the technical road blocks and set expectations back to the company that are unrealistic. A great deal of this goes beyond tacking a calculated risk.
In this industry, everyone has a grand story with a kernel of truth. Open source software is no different. I like it because I can take the source and solve my own problems if I have the time. However, a very small percentage of people can do this so it is at best a minor argument. Much of the claims I have seen over the years are out right fraud. I left companies that were good because a buy out changed companies from engineering to hype / fraudulent.
Big business in the US is based mostly on hype. To keep "market share" this is necessary. Enron Broadband was a hype. It had a core of truth masked by hype in a search for that all important market share. In this case it was also fraudulent because its hype was so large that it was out right lieing and not just streaching the truth. It occured because business in the good old US of A is about making money and NOT about producing products. As long os the multi nationals can keep paying off politicians this will not change.
My tirade is ended. All of you who stated you could go to jail if this is true, check your resumes. In the economy today getting fired is just as bad as going to jail. Maybe you are guilty.
Re:Times said it's very hard to prove (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Duke (Score:3, Interesting)
Consumers didn't get hurt one bit by Daikatana taking four years too long, but Eidos took a $30M hit. Worse, the reviews, word of mouth and demo ensured that to this day the game sits in $5 dust bins.
However, convincing people to buy into a streaming video technology which really consists of a VCR in a PC case (not in this instance but in another I've heard of) is a vaporware scam.
I think people are confusing frustration at sliding ship dates with an actual crime.
Re:Rampant (Score:3, Interesting)
Absolutely better off! (Score:3, Interesting)
Too many of society's current problems have to do with the ever-widening gulf between "legally acceptable" and "morally unacceptable", particularly in the business world. WorldCon, Enron, the whole investment banking industry pump 'n' dump of the late 90s, the car dealer, and many commonly accepted marketing practices can ALL be blamed on people doing "what's legal" but which are by any common standard of ethics dishonest.
Even spam (especially spam?) can largley be blamed on people marketing "products" which really don't work or for promoting "deals" which really aren't.
It'd be great to see more significant penalties and more streamlined punishment procedures for what essentially amounts to dishonesty for dollars.
The case of vaporware is essentially just a subset of the larger problem, and can be a particularly malicious tool used by big companies against small companies when product choices and switching are high-cost endeavors.
Re:Duke (Score:2, Interesting)
Wrong on puffery. (Score:2, Interesting)
Back to the original post, it is easy to define the endpoints of what should and should not be criminal vapor-hyping... if you do it to forestall consumers from buying a competitor's product... if you do it with the intent of making a competitor try to duplicate it.... Basically, if you do it to gain a competitive advantage, but know it is a feature/product that you aren't going to offer or not in the way you promote it.... that deserves some time in the iron-bar timeout room.
Announcing something that you simply fail to accomplish or not following through on something that the market tells you they don't want after you announce it.... is at the other end of the spectrum.
The grey area in between is the killer. You have to get into the state of mind, and big corps are good enough at masking the details, they will make what should be criminal vapor-hyping look like innocent failure to produce. They will introduce "weasel words" into everything... instead of saying "XX will offer 4x speed over YY" it will say "we hope for XX to offer 4x speed over YY"
Essentially, you will have to have a smoking gun memo saying "I know there are no plans for it, but lets announce that XX will have feature blah-blah anyway to preserve market share for 6 more months."
The only other way to do it otherwise, is to write a statute that requires a party challenged on its claims about future products to back them up... and then you get competitors doing it for harassment and to uncover a competitor's strategies. The FTC (and FDA) already has this problem in several areas.
Clear as mu
Not an issue (Score:3, Interesting)
I suspect it would mostly apply to more of the custom-application market (banks, hospitals, restraunts, etc.)