Posted by DA Morgan on 09/17/05 07:58

Hugo Kornelis wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Sep 2005 08:39:56 -0700, DA Morgan wrote:
>
> (snip)
>
>> Anyway, from a commercial point of view, it appears
>>
>>>to me that Microsoft is doing the right thing. By making betas of the
>>>new product available early on, more people get to play it, learn it
>>>and know it, and will thus be more inclined to deploy it early on.
>>
>>Other software companies seem to do well keeping their Betas as Betas.
>>I don't see SAP or IBM or anyone else thinking what you describe is
>>ethical.
>>
>>
>>>Since I have never used any Oracle product, I have no experience of they
>>>run their betas. I would be suprised though, if they never make any betas
>>>publically available, as most software vendors appear to do that at some
>>>point in the cycle.
>>
>>Never. The vast majority of software companies never make Betas
>>available to any other than qualified testers that will actuall use
>>their software for purposes of testing.
>>
>>Anyone thinking they can get a copy of Oracle 11 should be prepared to
>>buy Larry a new boat. I doubt anything less will put it into their
>>hands today or tomorrow.
>
>
> Hi DA,
>
> Did you google for "public beta" before posting this? I got over 2
> million hits. Just the first two pages had links to public beta programs
> of (among others) Norton AntiVirus 2006, Novell OpenEnterprise Server,
> Macromedia Flash Player, IBM Lotus Notes/Domino 7, and many others.
>
> These companies apparently take quality serious, and take their
> customers serious. They use the possibilities Internet offers to ensure
> that their products are tested by a number of testers, and on a number
> of configurations, that would never be achieved in a closed beta
> program.
>
> It's sad to learn that Oracle, apparently, still values secrecy over
> quality.
>
> Best, Hugo

Flash Player ... now there's a serious piece of software.

Just kidding. I guess I my views are somewhat outmoded given that I
deal in large line-of-business commercial applications. Did you find
any for Oracle? DB2? Informix? Sybase? ... Didn't think so.
--
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan@x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)

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