Harry Selfridge wrote:
There are real beta testers - not professional testers, or developers. You can volunteer to be one if you wish.
Volunteerism is for charitable causes, not to further the goals of a for-profit business. I prefer to spend my charitable efforts in helping the disadvantaged here in the USA seek medical care and my philanthropic donations helping the local Symphony Orchestra (another gathering place for the perpetually property stricken -- the musicians). I do not see any volunteer work going to boost the bottom line of a company -- any company. Let me digress for a moment before resuming the software testing issue.
I am a pilot. Here in the USA, if you are involved in an airplane crash, the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) investigates the accident and writes a matter of fact report. One of the decisionmaking tools that I use to keep myself safe is to consider how my actions would look in the NTSB report if things do go wrong. Imagining "Probable cause of accident: Pilot took off with a known mechanical problem with the aircraft" puts a totally different perspective on things than thinking "I know one of the two redundant systems is inoperative, but it is only a quick flight and the chances of the remaining system failing are sooooooo low"
Bringing that back to Altium, consider the following explanation to a client: "Dear Mr. Client. The reason your board has a short between all the planes is because I was suing a Beta software to lay it out and the software had a bug that shorted all the planes together. I know that it has caused you to scrap boards that cost thousands to fabricate and populate and now you are irrecoverably behind schedule, but I assure you that the situation was totally unforeseeable and completely unavoidable" Yes, the chances of your having to write such a letter are low, but if you do have to write it, how stupid would you appear for using Beta software and how irresponsible will you come across for taking such chances with your customer's business?
Had you volunteered to be a tester, you could have enjoyed nearly instantaneous communication with the folks who write and maintain the software - as well as the CEO of Altium himself.
Yes, being a Beta tester would give me a direct line to people inside the company, but it is highly irresponsible of me to take chances with my customer's products to get that connection. Even then, you seem to be placing far too much value in that contact. Over the last 2 years, I have had e-mail, phone and in-person communication with people at various levels at Altium, including at the level of VP and even "President, Altium Inc. (North America)" I know that the e-mails were received by her because I got responses acknowledging them (real person responses, not just auto-responder). Unfortunately, there was no follow-up or acknowledgment of any of the issues raised. I got the sense that if you did not agree with the party line, you were "shouting in the wind" no matter who from Altium was standing right there, peon or president.
Harry, based on what you have said, I strongly suspect that you are one of the beta testers. Yes, I know that the confidentiality agreement prevents you from disclosing that relationship, but it does not prevent you from listening and thinking. As you look back through all the traffic you have seen on the private beta tester forum that gave you direct access to developers and management at Altium, did you see anyone who had strong issues with the product and was willing/able to clearly and logically articulate them? It is my experience from companies other than Altium (no experience with Altium) that other than bug reports, such forums are populated mostly by believers who do not have much critical to say. This leads the management and the developers to think that everything they do is perfect and there are no real issues.
Regards, Hamid ____________________________________________________________ You are subscribed to the PEDA discussion forum To Post messages: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe and Other Options: http://techservinc.com/mailman/listinfo/peda_techservinc.com Browse or Search Old Archives (2001-2004): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] Browse or Search Current Archives (2004-Current): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
