August 15, 2006 – Events vs. Commitments
The Second Law of Software Dynamics:Â shipping software is a commitment, not an event.
Customers generally expect once they have adopted your software or service that you are going to continue to develop it, service it, respond to their requests for tweaks, and keep up with competitive forces. In short, they made a commitment (time, dollars, training, or perhaps a key part of their business) to you, and they are expecting the same.
Yes, this applies to Web 2.0, SAS, and whatever the new paradigm of the day is. It is all just software in different cloth. It may be delivered in a different way, or have a new business model attached, but the commitment remains the same.
(What is the First Law? Given any non-trivial system, as long as you test software, you continue to find bugs. I need to blog on when is enough, enough someday soon)