🚀 go-pugleaf

      So what stops you from revealing what's in the release?




This discussion must happen every day in board rooms across the globe - marketing on one side, customer service on the other. I think the problem is that, regardless of how you couch a pre-release feature announcement, you're going to have to give it some kind of spin, and find yourself covering your tracks in one way or another. Say if you announce something broad, such as "we're working on XML support." This means something vastly different to Frame to many different Frame and XML users; if Adobe made such an announcement, their marketing and sales people will have to be able to answer questions. This means they'll have to make stuff up, since no one knows what will make it into a product before it comes out.

If this is the can of worms Adobe is trying to avoid by its secrecy, well, I support it. It's good business. I know that many software manufactures (used to) drum up business by announcing massive innovations, sometimes even before development has begun; and yes it did increase interest in the upcoming release. But if you don't deliver (and how many software releases are completed on time and to spec?), you're in trouble.

      If you have set a release date, then you have finalized development and
      set up production, meaning you have a product with ready-made features.




I've always seen release dates set well in advance of a product's completion. Usually the date wouldn't be given to resellers until the company was sure they could meet it; but publishing this date wouldn't mean that development - and therefore a feature set - was complete.