Time and time again I see organisations marketing vapourware. For those of you who don’t know what vapourware is, it is software that does not exist. It is promoted through screenshots and other associated rubbish.
Well it looks as though this is creeping back into SMSF marketing. People are being shown screen shots of software that does not exist – or if it does exist, it is in a development environment – not a production environment and who knows when it will be available for use.
My sales guys don’t promote vapourware. They can tell you what is coming up in the next 3 weeks, maybe the next 6 weeks, but certainly they do not have access to development environments. And this is good. You should be sold software that exists – not something that might exist some time in the future.
Simple Fund 360 development at BGL has for many years worked on 3 week sprints. We release software every 3 weeks. Clients see new features, enhancements and bug fixes. You have new stuff all the time. No one else in our industry does this – maybe because they can’t or maybe because deployment for them is sooooo hard.
So the question you need to ask when you are being sold software is: Has this feature you are showing me been released to your current clients ? If it has not, when is the planned release ?
And if you are being sold vapourware, or given future dates, how do you know the supplier will meet them – especially when most are unable to get software out the door on a regular basis ?
