Products and prototypes: What’s the difference?

Prototypes are intended to demonstrate or test an idea. Commercial Off-The-Shelf products are intended for ongoing profitable sales. Their quality requirements are different: the former should be as cheap as possible whilst meeting the need for an adequate Proof-of-Concept or Demonstrator; the latter should be fit-for-purpose, cost-effective and an attractive, reliable solution to real world needs. Selling a prototype as a product risks customer dissatisfaction, com-plaints, legal challenges and reputation damage. Often the proto¬type has to be re-written to meet product quality-level expectations. This paper reviews the quality properties required of a product ready for delivery. This follows the ISO/IEC 25010 Quality Model, then adds important missing elements that lie “behind the scenes” in customer support, product management, legal aspects and defensive programming. It draws on a lifetime’s experience working on software products, products containing software and Software as a Service, providing facilities to end users

Ten Misconceptions about Product Software Release Management explained using Update Cost/Value Functions

The decision for a young product software vendor to release a version of their product is dependent on different factors, such as development decisions (it feels right), sales decisions (the market needs it), and quality decisions (the product is stable). Customers of these products, however, are much more cost oriented when deciding whether to update their product or not, and will look mainly at the cost and value of an update. Product software vendors would gain tremendously if their release package planning method was supported by a similar cost/value overview. This paper presents cost/value functions for product software vendors to support their release package planning method. These cost/value functions are supported by ten misconceptions encountered in seven case studies of product software vendors that these vendors had to adjust during their lifetime. Finally, a number of cost saving opportunities are presented to enable quicker adoption of a release and thus shorten release times and customer feedback cycles

Ten Misconceptions about Product Software Release Management Explained Using Update Cost/Value Functions

The decision for a young product software vendor to release a version of their product is dependent on different factors, such as development decisions (it feels right), sales decisions (the market needs it), and quality decisions (the product is stable). Customers of these products, however, are much more cost oriented when deciding whether to update their product or not, and will look mainly at the cost and value of an update. Product software vendors would gain tremendously if their release package planning method was supported by a similar cost/value overview. This paper presents cost/value functions for product software vendors to support their release package planning method. These cost/value functions are supported by ten misconceptions encountered in seven case studies of product software vendors that these vendors had to adjust during their lifetime. Finally, a number of cost saving opportunities are presented to enable quicker adoption of a release and thus shorten release times and customer feedback cycles

Ten misconceptions about product software release management explained using update cost/value functions (chapter 8 of this thesis

Pre-publication Proceedings of th