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Hype Vaporware, Go To Jail?
Tim Dierks writes "The New York Times (registration required) has an article describing a federal case against executives in Enron's broadband data division, based upon the charge that Enron claimed that a software platform was more complete and more functional than it actually was. It seems to be that if this case holds up, most of the software industry is guilty. Would the world be better off or not if it was illegal to overpromote the functionality or features of software?"
If you really have to ask yourselves that you have an issue with real morality.....
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
In this case I suspect the govt' is just trying to further stick it to Enron and set an example.
IDNRTA, but is this applying to future predictions that don't hold true (ie. Duke Nukem Forever will exist sometime)? It seems Enron claimed that something existed at the time they said it, which didn't hold true. Surely companies should be able to state that their product will be at point b in production by date x, (whether they truly believe it or not) and then have it at only point a when date x rolls around.
Also, just for reference, even if the prosecution succeeds, it just means that you can't lie to shareholders about vaporware. There's still nothing wrong with sowing FUD against competitors by making vaporware claims in your advertising so long as you keep them out of your stock prospectus and annual report.
True, true. I can't abide by blatent lies though, it needs to be made known that 'features are in development', instead of promising things that might not ever solidify.
TallGreen CMS hosting
I fear the day a judge decides if a feature is implemented. Even if the decision is about "a reasonable person would conclude," we'd have yet another set of SCO lawsuits. Just what the world needs.
It's interesting to see the possibility of a company called on vaporware though. Large companies get screwed all the time by sales people over-inflating the features of new versions forenterprise level software that they are shoehorned into buying in order to keep support of previous versions. Business is hurt by these tactics so much more than consumers, but it has become a (laughable) standard practice.
Now if only we could find a way to punish software that did get released and just plain sucks (Microsoft Bob anyone?).
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
Regarding DNF, it's being funded out of 3D Realms' pocket at this point in time (following comments by George on Shacknews), so no one is being bilked out of anything.
Besides, Battlecruiser 3000AD was Vaporware for like eight years, so as you can see there's worse things than never being released.
Schnapple
I think it would be great. It's the marketing clods and PHBs who oversell capabilities, product, and deliverable dates.
Let's not even get started on Microsoft's legal status under such a regime.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
Sadly, in practice, all I foresee out of that is lots of lawyers stirring up trouble and making lots more money, and very little improvement for the end-user.
Let's face it, part of the reason we have so much shoddy software about is because we, the end-users, encourage the behaviour (yes, I'm a Brit), by buying from whoever is first to market, rather than waiting for someone to release a quality debugged product. So, the people who cut corners are often rewarded and those who try to do "the right thing(TM)" are punished.
Look at the history of the softare industry and you'll see that honesty is the best policy.
Case in point -- Phillipe Kahn decided to "open the kimono" a bit and show off Paradox for Windows 18 months before it was ready to ship. Stock values went through the roof and people thought it was going to come out practially at any moment. Especially when he said it would be shipping in six months (18 months later it finally *did* ship).
If they'd only known at the time just how rehearsed all of that was. When they realized Paradox for Windows *wasn't* going to ship any time soon, stock values dropped sharply and Borland was investigated to see if any wrongdoing had occured. Fortunately what had been decided was that Borland's board of the time was just stupid in showing a product too soon. R&D knew it wasn't ready, but overzealous management thought that R&D was just being too cautions. Next time, listen to those who are being honest with you. Don't listen to just what you want to hear...
Today Borland (and many other software companies) all have the same policy; "We'll show it to you when it's ready. When will it be ready? When it is, that's when."
Personally I think *every* software vendor should be honest in the cost and timeline of something. And the same holds true for other vendors as well. Look at King County, Washington and the now demolished King Dome. They took the lowest bid on the dome from a company that simply couldn't deliver based on the the timeline and cost to contruct the dome. The result - Seattlites for *years* had to content with something that was dark, dismal, looked like a garbage can, and is still *being paid for today* even tho it's been demolished and replaced. If they had gone with an *honest* vendor and an *honest* price, who knows - it might still be standing today....
Now should you, as a software vendor, be held civially or criminally liable when you are less than honest about what you can deliver and when? No. I think you should be punished accordingly - your business should go elsewhere and you should simply cease to exist when your customers disappear. That's what's happened in the past and it's been effective. Many of the companies that couldn't deliver on their promises have gone. Or they *learned* (as in the case of Borland) and have gone on to thrive.
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
Between saying you expect to release a product with certain features on a given date and not making it, and saying that you have a product that has certain features right now when you don't.
A release date is a plan. Plans change. A statement that you have something you don't is a lie.
paintball
Just remember folks, Diakatana was VaopurWare for quite a while. Be careful what you wish for.
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
Free market research. But that company is all but out of business now.
If companies aren't able to throw out plans and ideas...
There's a difference between throwing out an idea for something and claiming you did something when you didn't. Looks like Enron was doing the latter.
Exit, pursued by a bear.
Remember this round robin DNS and NAT product is groundbreaking
Its easy to be groundbreaking when you are digging in the fields of well-tilled ideas.
The sad part is people will pay $$$ for this 'groundbreaking' product.
Nobody would argue that it is critical for companies to announce where they are going, both for developers and customers.
However, I have a big problem when a company says something exists or can do something when it doesn't. This is fraud.
I don't see any issue for noting on advertisements and product packaging that a product will be able to support a given feature with an expected firmware upgrade or additional feature/download/whatever. The Internet is ideal for telling customers what is happening with their product and when/how/where updates will be available which will add the missing features.
The carrot and stick for Vendors? I know that in my own case when I've bought something that didn't work as advertised, I make sure that people hear about the issues - while they sold one to a sucker (me), there is a net loss of all the people I can influence.
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
So, what happens in this case: The engineers/ programmers start the project, and are later asked by sales to come up with a list of features. The sales people start the hype train. Project goes over budget (or some VP thinks it's takig too long), and it gets release before it's time?
Now you've got software that doesn't do what you said it would. It happens in manufacturing, and I'm sure it happens in every other industry.
Two Rules For Success:
1) Never tell people everything you know.
"Promised functionality that had simply been discussed, but was not actually in code at the time. I'd say to the sales managers, "what the hell are you doing?" to which they would reply, "making sales"."
And someone on the other end of the equasion was blindly believing the sales droid. Honestly this whole thing runs fairly parallel to buying a used car. The weasel in the bad suit is going to tell you anything he can to part you from your cash and you had better get the merchandise checked out before you commit to anything. So why are the management types who agree to these purchases green-light them so easily, without checking the product out. This is what CONTRACTS are for. If they want to make you promises, make them write it down. If you want to complain later if you didn't get it in writing, whose fault is that?
Would the world be better off or not if it was illegal to overpromote the functionality or features of software?
Overpromote in what way? If you say that a feature exists, knowing that it doesn't, with the intent to make a profit, that's fraud, and you should be charged criminally with it.
One sticking point you might notice with my definition is that you have to know that you are lying, and that has to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Looks like some old tried-and-true methods for reporting are even more useful today:
1. Be honest...let your boss overrule you, but be honest. Your boss may well be aware of other factors you don't/can't know...valid business reasons.
2. Document up the significant/questionable decisions made in a confirming e-mail (good/bad/who-cares)...to your boss and higher-up, if you believe it opens the company to liability/fraud. The goal here is to have an e-mail path folks can refer to...and make sure everybody agrees on what to do.
3. Save you outgoing e-mail to disk and perodically save it off-site, respecting company confidentiality, privacy, and security restrictions. At a minimum, copy it to another file/system/directory on your network where it will be saved to long-term storage. Lawyers/Government folks can subpoena this stuff and go through it if things get criminal.
4. Don't run out and do something questionable just based on verbal instructions...make sure you send the confirming e-mail...gives folks a chance to change their minds, deal with changing requirements, etc. This has saved my posterior on many occasions as an architect/dba/designer...
5. If it don't smell ethical, it probably isn't. You definitely want some protection if it comes back to bite you...confirming the order (and put in words like "...unless I hear differently from you in e-mail or writing before X, I will perform these actions you have ordered...") will save you a lot of legal expenses.
6. You can go overboard on everything, but I think most people will know the right balance to document. Think of it (and sell it) as "confirming the tasking resulting from the meeting/decision". Or as "Trust but verify"...
This probably sounds like excerpts from the Big Book of CYA, which it is in part, but also helps your boss keep focused on what you are working on. And if a schedule is revised from higher-ups, it will point up from you...and save you from explaining/defending yourself.
NASTY REALITY ALERT: What you don't want to do is be told to check something in and have your boss declare it done...with no confirmation or status indicating it was not ready...it then gets into a "you said...I said" situation that sleazoids can weasel out of. Yes, you can have your career defined somewhat by these actions (certainly has happened to me--had to change jobs) but you're not going to be sued or have trouble sleeping at night because of this...If you can't be (perhaps tactfully) honest as a software professional, you should change careers...that's what's caused this mess... END NASTY REALITY ALERT
I figure the execs will get hammered and some developers who really lied through their teeth will get slapped.
Big question remaining: If software development gets offshored, who is liable? Will folks have to sue developers or their companies in India/Russia/Phillipines/etc. for recovery? Or will the U.S. executives making these outsourcing decisions and taking delivery of the products be on the hook...?
I don't think the Hogan's Hero's answer by Seargent Shultz ("I know nothing!") will work anymore...
Supreme Granter of Doctor of Obviology Letters ("A FIRM Command of the Obvious")
Let's say you're designing a video data link. Your boss doesn't know and frankly probably doesn't care about the clever compression and variable bit rate stuff you've implemented. If you got into stuff like channel characterization and configurable modulation parameters, the glazed look in the higher-ups faces would make you wonder if the water at the meeting had been spiked with thorozine. So you simplify, and say you can send video up to 5km away. Now this isn't a false statement, it just doesn't say that at that range you have increased compression and a lower frame rate. However, from that simplified description, someone, somewhere, may end up saying you can send 1080i signals for miles.
The point here is that even when there is no deception intended, product descriptions have to be understandable to a large number of people of. This results in a generalized description which is open to mis-interpretation.
If I say I'm selling a V-8 and it's actually a V-6, that's illegal. There should be no difference in the software world! The companies know what the software does, and if they say it does more than it really is capable, they are attempting to deceive their customers.
stuff |
To overhype/promise on the features of anything and then underdeliver is a sure way to kill a business. As a business owner, I've seen many businesses go under because of this. It's unfortunate that the software industry doesn't seem to understand this fact. It's also ridiculous for people to keep clinging to the hope that the software company will eventually produce instead of finding another product (OSS software anyone?) to fill the need.
Don't get me wrong: some of the vaporware EVENTUALLY becomes reality but how much of that actually lives up to the hype? Not much.
I've learned that, to keep my customers satisfied, I have to fulfill their NEEDS, deliver on those promises, then go the extra mile by providing more than they expect. It's the best way to get customers to come back for more.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
...and from a customer perspective, the software worked fine. The main problem with the service was that the movies they offered were mostly crap. It was a couple hundred movies, and there were only 5 or so that I had any desire to see. The interface was a bit awkward, but the features worked reasonably well, especially for a trial. The best part about the trial was that Verizon throttled my DSL connection up to 8MBPS so that Video On Demand would work! :)
Turned it back down a couple months after the trial ended though.
From reading the article, it looks like VOD was just a small part of their broadband initiative, so maybe the "vaporware" issue was something else. Also, when this story first broke a couple of months ago, the reason the execs were in hot water was that Enron reported future, non-existant profit from their broadband operations.
False advertising is when claims made are false in entirety. Microsoft does have functional security; it is just far more lax and insecure than they admit.
..... they would clearly be prosectued.
Heres the thing: I dont recall Microsoft making any concrete claims about its security whatsoever. Microsoft does not sell Windows XP on the basis that it will make your computer safe from hackers, and even if they did, there is neither an adequate benchmark to compare it to, nor an accepted standard of the word "safe" (or "hacker") that courts can admit. Not saying that your security is better or worse than another security system is most certaintly not fraud, let alone hyperbole (what you call "puffery"). Its not a matter of allowing it, so much as not being able to prosecute it because of logical arguments to the contrary. Now consider if Microsoft marketed Windows XP on the claim "There is no way for any person to gain unauthorized access to this software"
-- "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." Jean Jacques Rousseau