Jacques, >I sure hope to `conversation' is interesting to more than just the two of us!
I suspect that most agree with one of us and you would not get good odds on it being me. >>>overwhelming source of the ``real'' problems. Unfortunately, low customer >>>pressure has given that industry the >complete opposite behaviour: new >>>features need to be put in, even at the cost of quality, to insure that >>>renewal $$$ >come in. >>Industry responding to customer demand. Why do people think >>that companies selling software based products should not act >>in a way that maximises their profits? Another topic of research >>for ppigers! > >Ah, but here we have highly skewed market forces: the people who pay the money >for the software (in the case of large site licenses) do not use the software, >or even have a clue of what the software does. So money is not a proper >feedback mechanism about the software - merely about the sales mechanism. Sounds like you are still stuck in the rut that "The purpose of commercial companies should be to produce high quality software"; when in fact their purpose is to maximise investors return on investment (which may or may not involve the production of quality software). The people who pay the money are the customers of commercial companies. The fact that they do/don't use the product is irrelevant. The amount of input into the purchasing decision made by users of a product can vary between 0 and 100%. The fact that the figure is rarely close to 100% always comes as a shock to graduates starting in their first commercial job. I lay a large chunk of the blame at the feet of CS educators who would clearly fail an introductory course in business administration. Perhaps I was wrong to suggest that software developers should be jailed. Jailing a few university lecturers for teaching nonsense might be a more efficient long term solution. derek -- Derek M Jones tel: +44 (0) 1252 520 667 Knowledge Software Ltd mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Applications Standards Conformance Testing http://www.knosof.co.uk ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([email protected]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
