Software Marketing terminology explained: Alpha: Software that is so buggy that even the beta testers won't install it.
Announced date: The date the product manager hopes to go on vacation.
API: A function library with more than 200 minimally distinguishable entry points.
Beta: Software that isn't quite finished, as in "beta late than never."
Chief Technology Officer: The guy in charge of the PowerPoint slide show.
Fact sheet: What's left of the specification after the product ships.
Focus group: Buying drinks for market analysts.
Fully compatible: Same old features.
In manufacturing: The programmers are still "manufacturing" features.
In shipping: Someone in the 00000 ZIP code has a copy -- most likely the product manager's brother-in-law. No one else will get a copy for weeks.
Industry insiders: Disgruntled employees after one too many drinks.
Long-term planning: What will happen when the new marketing VP is hired.
Market research: Buying drinks for customers.
Memory leak: What the company president remembers telling the market analysts.
Minimum system requirements: The oldest PC anyone could find in the company storeroom.
Multitasking: The ability to crash several programs at the same time.
Multithreading: The ability to crash a single program in several ways at the same time.
New and improved: Totally incompatible.
On schedule: Will include a coupon in the box for the missing pieces.
Online help: Call the psychic hotline for technical support.
Open architecture: The developers didn't finish half of what was in the spec.
Press leak: The company president speaking to market analysts.
Press release: What the marketing department thought was being built. Often confused with the specification for the next version.
Release candidate: Software built just before a major holiday.
SDK: A development system without documentation.
Short-term planning: Meeting payroll.
Strategic partnership: A couple of second-rate companies that cannot afford to merge.
Trade secret: Another way to say "we don't have the source code."
Upwardly compatible: Lots of new bugs.
User friendly: Lots and lots of gratuitous bitmaps.
Visionary: CEO who has not yet bankrupted a company.
Windows 95 compatible: The 1993 feature set, two years later.
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