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Comment It's a valid concern, but most likely a bad "fix" (Score 1) 693

Well, as an engineer who has been doing product management for the last eight years or so, I've certainly heard this one. Certainly, customers will be concerned about maturity. I assume with the $10K+ price tag that this is a business-to-business application. Your customers will have to go through a lot of hoops, checklists, evaluations and whatnot to purchase the product. One item on the checklist will for sure be "maturity" - having a version number greater than 1.0 might let it slide past that item - other likely items one the checklists will likely be things like "years in market", etc. - IMHO, faking a version number isn't worth the likely benefit in circumstances like that - the product manager will have to defend that in every customer meeting. Also, another quick rant - it seems like most slashdotters are assuming that the product becomes more "mature" the longer it exists and as versions progress - I'd say that for applications in this class this is not so. When you have a $10K+ app, the pressure will be very high from customers to feature fill at a quick rate - and if you want to keep the high dollar maintenance contracts coming in features will abound - quality is not likely to improve in this environment.
Software

Do Software Versions Really Matter? 693

An anonymous reader writes "I work for a rather large software company and I am currently working on a completely new product. So new in fact, that the official name has not even been decided. I had assumed that the version number for this product would be 1.0 (at most). However recently I learned that the Product Managers want to release this NEW product with a version number somewhere between 5.0 and 8.0 because 'there is a stigma about buying 1.0 products. People assume it's no good.' This latest Dilbert-esque comedy routine nearly sent me over the edge. So to gauge my sanity against that of the upper Product Management, I ask the community: Do version numbers play a role in software decisions, or have product version numbers lost all credibility and meaning? Would the community feel comfortable buying version '6.3' software (and paying tens of thousands of dollars for it) knowing that it was the first release of the product?"
Media

Linux Now an Equal Flash Player 437

nerdyH writes "As recently as 2007, Linux users waited six months for Flash 9 to arrive. Now, with Microsoft pushing its Silverlight alternative, Adobe is touting the universality of its Flash format, which has penetrated '98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops,' it claims. And, it today released Flash 10 for Linux concurrently with other platforms. Welcome to the future." Handily enough, Real Networks released this summer RealPlayer 11 for Linux, the first release for which they've included a .deb package, and offers nightly builds of their Helix player, for which Linux is one of the supported platforms.

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