Peter Coffee has an article proclaiming that Quality is Now Job 1 for ISVs. Here is part of the account:
Quality, not time, has become the critical unit of measure in software development. Microsoft Corp. became a poster child for that doctrine when it announced Nov. 29 that it would start releasing Vista previews based on meeting quality milestones rather than hewing to monthly dates.
And I can say without equivocation that Quality is Job 1 for ISVs. The market lifecycle and the presence of Open Source vendors in so many of those markets dictate that quality has to be high to survive. Except in a monopoly market, where Just Good Enough prevails.
Fellow Ziff Davis writer Mary Jo Foley at nearly the same time picks up this Just Good Enough issue and how software emanating from Redmond tops that list. Here are are some starter websites that more than carry the issue:
Bugs in VS2005
The Philosophy of Good Enough
This Weblog has had its say on this topic
In short there is no shortage of testament coming in many cases directly from Redmond that says the most important of tools, the developer tools, is being released on a Just Good Enough criteria. Now we know that Redmond will claim “most vigourous testing ever” – but the problem is the change logs. Even the most adept agilist would cringe at the waves of changes confronting VS2005 developers. And with Vista development frameworks like Expression Suite, WinFS, WinCF, WinPF, WinWF still being finalized the new promise to be more agile wont stop the bug parade.
So I am willing to bet one shiny Canadian doubloon with Peter, that when it comes to the release of Vista, it will be before its time because Apple will have released the Intel-based Mac with a new and tested OS and started to eat chunks of market share from Microsoft.
So in order for me to win this bet the following must all occur:
1)Apple releases Appletel box and new MacOS at least two weeks before Vista release;
2)Apple must have first week and first month, and first quarter sales of Appletel box that are 20% above year ago sales for Apple desktops;
3)There must be at least 10 blog or news reports saying that Vista was released prematurely or without complete feature set or with too many bugs. These reports must occur within 6 weeks of Vistas release to public.
I am so confident that Redmond will renege on the pledge that for Vista-> Software Quality is Now Job 1 that I have already spent the doubloon on Christmas booty.
(c)Jacques Surveyer 2005