Vaporware is a software or hardware product which is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge, either with or without a protracted development cycle. Hardware is a general term that refers to the physical artifacts of a Technology. A software development process is a structure imposed on the development of a software product The term implies unwarranted optimism, or sometimes even deception; that is, it may imply that the announcer knows that product development is in too early a stage to support responsible statements about its completion date, feature set, or even feasibility. Software development is the translation of a user need or marketing goal into a Software product

Contents 1 Origins 2 Hoaxes 3 Types 3.1 Anticompetitive practices 3.2 Overambitious hype 3.3 Falls short of expectations 3.4 Obsolete on delivery 3.5 Lack of focus 4 Vaporware Awards 5 Redemptive software 6 See also 7 References 8 External links

Origins

The term originated with magazine reviewers in the late 1970s/early 80s, originally as a spoof on software marketers' tendency to attach "-ware" to whatever noun described the application of their products.

At that time the personal computer market was in its infancy, and it was common for computer manufacturers to supply the software that ran on them, which would rarely work on other manufacturers' machines.

Software development would often lag behind the development of the system's computer hardware. As a result, some computer manufacturers advertised extravagant software packages that allegedly came with their machines, but had not yet been completed, or in some cases, hardly begun, in an effort to sell their hardware and encourage further software development.

Hoaxes

There is a similarity between vaporware and a species of hoax: both involve promoting a product or event which cannot later be produced. A hoax is a deliberate attempt to Dupe, Deceive or trick an audience into believing or accepting that something is real when in fact it is not or that There have been a number of hoaxes in technological fields, wherein the hoaxer promises that proof of his offering will be forthcoming — eventually.

Examples include any number of perpetual motion machine "inventors". The term perpetual motion, taken literally refers to movement that goes on forever The distinction may be that in vaporware, the proponent truly does intend to produce the advertised product, while in hoax, he knows the product does not exist, cannot be produced, or that he will not do so.

Types

Anticompetitive practices

The marketing angle to "releasing" vaporware can be two-fold. In popular usage "marketing" is the promotion of products especially Advertising and Branding However in professional usage the term has a wider meaning of On one hand the intention is to create the demand for a feature or product which did not previously exist in the market. On the other, the intent is also to judge the public reaction from the "release" and prepare a concrete marketing plan. A marketing plan is a written document that details the necessary actions to achieve one or more marketing objectives For example, if a virtualization software's vaporware causes ripples in Slashdot but not in industry journals, the executives responsible may feel the need to reposition the product, or even to go back to the drawing board and redesign and reach the target audience. Slashdot, often abbreviated as /, is a technology-related news Website owned by SourceForge Inc In Marketing, positioning has come to mean the process by which marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds of their target market for its product, Market specialization is a business term meaning the Market segment to which a particular good or service is marketed In some cases, vaporware may be the result of a trial balloon which "doesn't fly". A trial balloon is information sent out in order to observe the reaction of an audience Subsequently the project is quietly cancelled, sometimes before any actual development work is done.

In other cases, vaporware may be announced by companies in order to damage the development or marketability of more real products by competitors, sometimes in combination with a campaign of fear, uncertainty and doubt; if customers believe the hype, they may put off purchasing the real product to wait for its vaporous rival to mature. Fear uncertainty and doubt ( FUD) is a tactic of Rhetoric and Fallacy used in Sales, Marketing, Public relations and politics A hype cycle is a graphic representation of the maturity adoption and business application of specific technologies.

Another possible (and, in most jurisdictions, illegal) reason for announcing vaporware is to cause an uptick in the stock prices of a publicly traded company. This can then be used to gain more investment capital or allow officers of the company to sell shares on the "hype" of the software that may or may not ever be completed. (see pump and dump). Microcap stock fraud is a form of Securities fraud involving stocks of " microcap " companies generally defined in the United States as those with a market

Allegations of anticompetitive vaporware, as well as concerns within the software industry prompted David Dranove (of Northwestern University) and Neil Gandal (of Tel Aviv University, University of California, Berkeley) to conduct an empirical study designed to measure the effect of the DIVX preannouncement on the DVD market. Tel Aviv University (TAU אוניברסיטת תל־אביב את"א is Israel 's largest on-site University, located in Tel Aviv. The University of California Berkeley (also referred to as Cal, Berkeley and UC Berkeley) is a major research university located in Berkeley DIVX ( Digital Video Express) was an attempt by Circuit City and the entertainment law firm Ziffren Brittenham Branca and Fischer to create an alternative DVD (also known as " Digital Versatile Disc " or " Digital Video Disc " - see Etymology)is This study suggests that the DIVX preannouncement slowed down the adoption of DVD technology. According to Dranove and Gandal, the study suggests that the "general antitrust concern about vaporware seems justified. "^[1]

Overambitious hype

Many companies announce vaporware in order to prove that their R&D departments are still full of new ideas. One subtle variation of this strategy is to remove a planned feature of a forthcoming product.

Sometimes vaporware is the result of over-optimism , and may actually materialize after a long waiting time (sometimes years). One example of this was the long-delayed Apple Macintosh word processor FullWrite Professional, announced by Ann Arbor Softworks in January 1987 for delivery that April, and actually delivered in late 1988. Macintosh, commonly nicknamed Mac is a Brand name which covers several lines of Personal computers designed developed and marketed by Apple Inc FullWrite Professional was a Word processor application for the Apple Macintosh, released in late 1988 by Ashton-Tate. Year 1987 ( MCMLXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar) Year 1988 ( MCMLXXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar)

In the United Kingdom, Sir Clive Sinclair's Sinclair Research Ltd was quite notorious for its tardy product delivery cycle; various flat-screen displays, miniature televisions, the Sinclair QL business computer and Sinclair C5 electric car, the advanced Loki and several other projects were either late, unfinished, or entirely fictitious. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located Sir Clive Marles Sinclair (born July 30, 1940) is a well-known British Entrepreneur and Inventor of the world's first Sinclair Research Ltd is a consumer electronics company founded by Sir Clive Sinclair in Cambridge, England (originally as Sinclair Radionics in 1961 to The Sinclair QL (for Quantum Leap) was a Personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984 as the successor to the ZX Spectrum The Sinclair C5 was a Battery electric vehicle invented by Sir Clive Sinclair and launched in the United Kingdom on 10 January 1985. Loki was the codename for a Home computer under development at Sinclair Research during the mid-1980s

Several years before CD-R was introduced, Tandy Corporation had promised a fully recordable CD format called Thor-CD,^[2] but after being pushed back for several years, it was finally shelved due to technical limitations, and then became known as "Vapordisc". A CD-R ( C ompact D isc- R ecordable is a variation of the Compact Disc invented by Philips and Sony. Tandy Corporation was a family-owned Leather goods company based in Fort Worth Texas, which is best known for purchasing and giving its name to the Fort Worth Thor-CD was a recordable CD format proposed in 1988 by Tandy (parent company of Radio Shack) that was never released in commercial version

Sometimes the delays or eventual shelving of a software product maybe caused by a corporate merger or internal strife within the company.

Peter Molyneux earned the dubious reputation of promoting games with lofty goals, such as Dungeon Keeper, Black & White, Fable, and The Movies, but often ended up having to remove copious amounts of features due to release date pressure or system limitations. Peter Douglas Molyneux OBE (born 5 May 1959 in Guildford, Surrey, UK) is a Computer game designer Dungeon Keeper is a PC Strategy game released by Bullfrog Productions in July 1997. Black & White is a Computer game developed by Lionhead Studios and published by Electronic Arts and Feral Interactive. Fable is a role-playing Video game for Xbox, Mac OS X, and Windows platforms The Movies is a Business simulation game created by Lionhead Studios for Microsoft Windows and subsequently ported to Apple Mac OS

One of the most famous pieces of Vaporware is Duke Nukem Forever promised in 1997, and not yet released in spring 2008, yet still promised to be released. Duke Nukem

Falls short of expectations

This category refers particularly to products that may not be inherently flawed or defective, but rather fail to fulfill the high expectations of the consumers who have been subjected to aggressive marketing campaigns and constant hype from either the company itself or the media who reported about it in the period leading to release. Delays on such products have been known to inflate to months and even years, creating often unrealistic expectations of the final version once it eventually reaches store shelves.

The biggest example of this is the computer game Daikatana, which was announced in 1997 but did not ship until 2000. A personal computer Game (also known as a computer game or simply PC game) is a Video game played on a Personal computer, rather Daikatana is a First-person shooter Computer game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive. Year 1997 ( MCMXCVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1997 Gregorian calendar 2000 ( MM) was a Leap year that started on Saturday of the Common Era, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. Many who had waited felt the gameplay was disappointing. Ultima IX was released to savage reviews in 1999, due to numerous bugs, unbalanced gameplay and high system requirements. Ultima IX Ascension ( 1999) is the ninth and final part of the Computer role-playing game series Ultima. Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar)

Obsolete on delivery

In other cases, vaporware never materializes because some other product fills its niche in the meantime, rendering it redundant or unmarketable.

One example is Project Xanadu, a hypertext project started in 1960 whose intended role has been mostly filled by the World Wide Web. Project Xanadu was the first Hypertext project Founded in 1960 by Ted Nelson, the project contrasts its vision with that of paper "Today's popular software Year 1960 ( MCMLX) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The World Wide Web (commonly shortened to the Web) is a system of interlinked Hypertext documents accessed via the Internet.

The Spartan was possibly the first, classic example of vaporware in hardware. It was an Apple II emulator for the Commodore 64 that attached to the back of the computer and added a full complement of Apple II expansion slots and I/O ports. An emulator duplicates (provides an emulation of the functions of one System using a different system so that the second system behaves like (and appears to In Computing, input/output, or I/O, refers to the communication between an Information processing system (such as a Computer) and the outside At the time of its announcement, the Apple II had the largest software library of any home computer, while the Commodore 64 was a relative newcomer. A home computer was a class of Personal computer entering the market in 1977 and becoming common during the 1980s A C64/Spartan combination would have had a price advantage over the Apple II, in addition to its C64 capability. By the time of the product's release, however, over two years later, the 64 had matured into a wildly successful platform in its own right, and few of its users cared about Apple compatibility. ^[3]

Another is Silicon Film, a proposed digital sensor cartridge for film cameras that would allow older cameras to take digital photographs yet require no modification. Announced in late 1998, Silicon Film was to work just like a roll of 35mm film, with a 1. 3 megapixel sensor behind the lens and a battery and storage unit fitting in the film holder in the camera. In Digital imaging, a pixel ( pict ure el ement is the smallest piece of information in an image The product, which never materialized, became increasingly obsolete due to improvements in digital camera technology and affordability. The original concept for Silicon Film evaporated in 2001 when the parent company filed for bankruptcy. ^[4] A year later, a new Silicon Film product was announced that would replace the back of film cameras with a 10-megapixel sensor and LCD display; this product also has yet to materialize. ^[5]

Lack of focus

By trying to do everything within a single product, the end result may be one that fails to do anything properly at all. By forgetting the initial purpose of a new software and trying to add more and more features, each individual feature gets less production resources invested.

An added risk to this approach is increased software instability, as rapidly growing software can generate increased amounts of unforeseen bugs, glitches, security holes and other problems that can sometimes go unnoticed for weeks and months. These bugs may indeed never get fixed at all, the patches required to address the issues themselves becoming new vaporware items.

Microsoft's Longhorn OS was first discussed in 2001 as a minor update to Windows XP, and intended to be released in 2004, but multiple successive delays and changes in strategy led some to call it "Longwait". Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational Computer technology Corporation, which rose to dominate the Home computer Windows XP is a family of 32-bit and 64-bit Operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Longhorn garnered third place in Wired's Vaporware Awards in 2004 and 2005. "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Wired quoted a reader as saying, "If Microsoft keeps on pushing back the dates for Longhorn and removing features from it, they might as well just promise to bundle Duke Nukem Forever with the OS. Duke Nukem "^[6] The Longhorn project was eventually named Windows Vista. Windows Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops Microsoft released the OS to businesses at the end of November 2006, while releasing it to home users was delayed until January 30, 2007.

Further information: Development of Windows Vista

Vaporware Awards

In addition to historical examples, there are many products whose ultimate fate is unknown, and are considered vaporware. Development of Windows Vista occurred over the span of five and a half years starting in earnest in May 2001 prior to the release of Microsoft 's Windows XP

One such example is the computer game Duke Nukem Forever, which has been in development for over twelve years, announced shortly after the success of Duke Nukem 3D in 1996 and with an original projected release date of 1998. A video game is a Game that involves interaction with a User interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. Duke Nukem Duke Nukem 3D is a First-person shooter computer game developed by 3D Realms and published by Apogee Software. The game has since won Wired News's Vaporware Awards numerous times. Wired News is an online technology news Website, formerly known as HotWired, that split off from Wired magazine when the It placed in second in 2000^[7] and topped the list in 2001^[8] and 2002. ^[9] Wired News created the Vaporware Lifetime Achievement Award exclusively for Forever and awarded it in 2003. George Broussard accepted the award, simply stating, "We're undeniably late and we know it. "^[10] It did not make the list in 2004, but Leander Kahney noted that they had received a lot of nominations for the game. ^[6] By popular demand, it topped the list again in 2005. ^[11] Currently, Duke Nukem Forever has been announced (once again) to be in full production, still however without a specified release date. ^[12] Wired once again awarded Duke Nukem Forever the first place in 2006 and 2007.

Also worth noting are the Indrema and Phantom video game consoles. Indrema was an electronics company infamous for the Vaporware Indrema L600 Entertainment System. The Phantom was a controversial Video game console that was under development by Phantom Entertainment, formerly Infinium The latter took Wired's top "award" in 2004, and second in 2005. It was finally dropped by its developer in August 2006.

Another classic example of vaporware is Turbo Pascal for the Amiga computer which was announced when Borland placed a full page advertisement in the Fall 1985 premier edition of AmigaWorld magazine. Turbo Pascal is a complete software development system that includes a Compiler and an Integrated Development Environment (IDE for the Pascal programming language The Amiga is a family of Personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation. Borland Software Corporation is a software company headquartered in Austin Texas. It never shipped and was quietly dropped a few years later. Though it never formally received an award, it was periodically mentioned over the decade that followed in various computer-related magazines due to the notoriety of Borland and the splash that the full page ad created for the then just-released Amiga 1000.

Redemptive software

On occasion, some software titles that were initially classified as "vaporware" redeem themselves after long waiting periods. Games that had an unusually long development period filled with delays and restarts include Half-Life^[13], Half-Life 2 and Prey^[14], which received chiefly positive reviews. Half-Life is a Science fiction First-person shooter computer game developed by Valve Software and the company's debut product Half-Life 2 is a Science fiction First-person shooter computer game and the sequel to the highly acclaimed Half-Life For other uses of the word Prey see Prey (disambiguation Prey is a First-person shooter Video game developed by Human

Another prime example of a redemptive vaporware could be Team Fortress 2 (announced in 1998) which, after a redesign from a more realistic character and level design to a more cartoonish character design reminiscent of Pixar movies, received glowing hands-on previews^[15][16][17], and it was finally released on Oct. Pixar Animation Studios is a CGI animation production company based in Emeryville California. 10, 2007 (playable since Sept. 21 as an open beta for people who preordered "The Orange Box" pack). The Orange Box is a Video game compilation for Microsoft Windows, the Xbox 360, and the PlayStation 3.

See also

• Development Hell
• Glossyware
• List of cancelled video games
• List of vaporware
• List of commercial failures in computer and video gaming
• Shovelware

References

External links

Wired Magazine Vaporware Awards

Vaporware 1997: We Hardly Knew Ye Vaporware 1998: Windows NT Wins Vaporware 1999: The 'Winners' Vaporware 2000: Missing Inaction

Vaporware 2001: Empty Promises Vaporware 2002: Tech up in Smoke? Vaporware 2003: Nuke 'Em if Ya Got 'Em Vaporware 2004: Phantom Haunts Us All

Vaporware 2005: Better Late Than Never Vaporware 2006: Return of the King Vaporware 2007: Long Live the King

Other

• Community Memory postings on the term's origins crediting Ann Winblad and Stewart Alsop. Wired is a full-color monthly American Magazine and on-line periodical published in San Francisco, California since March 1993 Community Memory was the first public computerized Bulletin board system. Ann L Winblad (born on November 1 1950 in Red Wing Minnesota is a partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.

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