I'm sure that most of you have read or heard by now that the release date of both Yukon and Whidbey has been delayed. Most of those I've spoken to at Microsoft, Microsoft Partners, and in the Community have told me that while being disappointed with the news of a new timeframe, that they are more than happy to wait a little longer for the release. Why? Because they want the quality, the features, and the revolutionary technology these two extraordinary products are promising to deliver to be done right, or as close to right as possible, the first time.
So instead of the old adage, get the product out on time (even though it may have bugs, or features had to be slashed) to get it into the customers hands and then deliver service pack after service pack until all the features are finally there – most times breaking older features that users have already implemented. They’ve decided to say screw that, let’s just push back the release, do the thing right the first time, and if need be “Add” features later. And sure, they’ll probably get scrutinized by competitors like Oracle (who still uses a date driven model) for not delivering the products on time, but I think in the end they’ll be better off.
So I guess my question is what do you prefer?
A: A date driven model where the corporation delivers on time but not always the best product
B: A feature/application model where the corporation delivers a rock solid product sometimes in a modified time frame.
I know that there are many other issues here, but I’m just wondering about the above.