Once a year, I send all the CUJ columnists an editorial schedule. One of the main things the schedule contains is deadlines for columns. I really do expect to receive copy on the deadlines I publish. But inevitably my columnists discover that there is a pad built into the schedule. They can be a day or two late and still get into the magazine. It isn't long before a slippage occurs. The columnists mentally add two days to their deadlines when planning their columns. A few months later, perhaps, they mentally add two days to that date and — we're in deep yogurt without a spoon.
I've received numerous unhelpful suggestions on how to handle this problem, the most frequent being to simply add more days of padding to the schedule. The folly of that scheme should be obvious. It won't be long before the columnists discover the new padding. Deeper into the yogurt we go. Nor can I quickly yank the padding out of the schedule, because the columnists have been conditioned to expect one. A fine, and some would say just, predicament for an editor to be in.
I don't bring this up to chide my beloved columists, who are, after all, only human. I bring it up because it illustrates a similar situation that exists in the software industry. I call it the Beta Game. It goes like this: some enterprising PR firm wants their client to get a jump on the competition, so they send out a flurry of press releases announcing that such-and-such widget is now in beta. We all drop what we were doing, quit our jobs, and join the Peace Corps. Well, no, we don't really, but that's what the PR people think. But if we're responsible for purchasing software or designing software architectures, we do make a mental note to check out just how beta this beta really is. Is it the kind of beta that means a new product is on the way, or is it the kind of beta that means someone wants to use us as a guinea pig?
If that were as far as the Beta Game went, we'd all be okay. But a slippage has occurred. We no longer ask the above question, because we haven't the time. We don't have time because everybody's playing the Beta Game, breathlessly telling us about their next new beta. Or even worse, telling us about their next new (groan) strategic alliance. (When was the last time you used the word "synergy" in a sentence? If it was just last week, you're reading the wrong magazine.) The point is, we haven't got time to smell-check betas any more, so now we are starting to base our purchasing and design decisions on beta announcements.
You can see where this is going, and I can't think of an easy way out. We can't expect any single vendor to come clean and stop announcing their precious betas — that might be suicide. And we sure as hell don't want them to start announcing alphas. What we've got here is a deep yogurt kind of situation.
There is one thing we can do and that is to demand that vendors be truthful in their product announcements. I recently ran across an announcement that said "Product X is initially available in configuration Y." A cruise through this vendor's website revealed that product X was not available for sale, "initially" or otherwise, which makes me wonder: who writes stuff like this, and where were they when President Clinton needed them?
Vendors like this deserve to get spammed. If you run into one, gather together your compadres and send the vendor an email blitz. Let 'em know how you feel about such nonsense. We, the potential customers, should not require a magnifying glass, or a lawyer, to figure out if a vendor's product is still in beta! And we shouldn't have to talk to their salespeople or grope around on their website either. For my part, I guarantee that any stealth-beta product announcement I detect won't get into this magazine. Straight to the trash it goes, along with those strategic bedfellow deals.
Our message to vendors is simple. Just tell us when your products are for sale, or tell us loud and clear that they're still in beta. Anything between is of the devil. It may be too late to stop the Beta Game, but with diligence, we can keep it from getting any worse.
Marc Briand
Editor-in-Chief