Re: Another SW + Vista question

John,

Ultimately it is up to SW to test their software and provide it to
users in a finished and usable form. Over the years we have come to
expect to have to test it ourselves. It is rather surprising to me
that the OS makes that much difference in how SW operates. But it
does.

Having been around for a while (like you) I went over in my mind the
history of Beta testing (help me here with dates.)

When SW was marketed circa 1995 the company was very tight lipped
about any new feature or functionality. When released it was solid ( I
rarely found problems). Problems were handled in Concord and that is
were you called for tech support. Pro/E seemed to be the paradigm for
what the software was supposed to do and at least in my mind Pro/E was
the standard to which SW should be evaluated. 166Mhz was a screaming
fast processor at the time. From 95 to 98 there were few changes to
the user interface and some basic functionality that was still being
sorted out like having a single mate tree in an assembly.

By 1998 SW was starting to have a few show stopper problems and for me
performance was starting to be an issue (300 Mhz was about the fastest
processor and it wasn't adequate for mold work). I started asking my
VAR when he thought the next SP was ready to use. SW would never
release vaporware, bucking the general trend in the software
inducstry.

By 2001 SW was starting to involve power users on a limited basis in
testing and product definition. The 3 Amigos met Biasotti in the lobby
of SW. Beta was still not open to the public. 1 gigahertz processors
were starting to be available and were still not fast enough. SW was
using statistics to determine what to fix and whether the product was
acceptable in the marketplace. There were small inklings of future
directions at SWW.

Around 2003/2004 SW started to open up beta testing. At first it
seemed to come out of the trend of having to ask the VAR whether SW
was really ready for production. SW was letting users identify
problems and leaving problems that user's didn't identify as being
show stoppers till last or never. 2003 was a major shift in
functionality in SW with the addition of multi-body support. This had
been in UG and Pro/E for years and was the last really great
improvement year in SW. SWW was being used to "vote" on new
functionality. Feature bloat in response to Inventor and SolidEdge
seem to become a driver in new functionality.

Currently it seems that SW has started to depend on schedule and beta
testing to wring out problems and release the product on time. SW
regularly releases vaporware at SWW now. Question: "At which SWW did
SW state that they would add some limited backward compatibility to
the software?" Pro/E is no longer the paradigm, Inventor and
SolidEdge are the paradigms.

What is wrong with such extensive beta testing? I would say skewed
statistics. People who are actually using the software probably don't
have the time to spend on beta. I know, I have spent hours at it. It
is hard to get work done and beta test and do a reasonable job at
both. Most beta testers will not have the latest cutting edge hardware
whereas SW always seems to. Vista is a good example.

TOP

.

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