No Solid Release Dates
From Jim Jannard:
1. We don’t have a good track record of making deadlines. So why frustrate our customers any more than we already have?
2. This is an EXTREMELY complicated project with a ton of difficult tricks. We are in uncharted territory.
3. Engineers are optimistic. Question- “So how long will it take to get this done?”… Answer- “6 months, no problem.” On top of them usually being overly optimistic, we are always changing things mid-stream… which is an engineer’s worst nightmare. These are the primary reasons we are behind a bit in the originally posted target schedule.
4. Several of our suppliers have gone out of business in the bad economy. It takes time to find replacements.
5. Customer feedback. It seems in vogue for companies to “listen to their customers”. We actually do. Anyway, listening means paying attention and adjusting the program based on feedback. Adjustments take time.
6. We also changed our release strategy. We had originally planned on releasing EPIC and Scarlet as we did the RED ONE. Bad idea. Instead of “beta” version released to everyone, we will release production versions to everyone after a tight beta program. This change takes longer to accommodate testing, fixes, bug patrol and more testing, upgrades, etc.
7. The market has changed. When we announced EPIC and Scarlet, the world was hot. Now it is cold. No reason to rush to an empty market.
8. “Yesterday we knew nothing.” How could we possibly make accurate predictions on delivery when we had no clue what we were doing? “Today we know something.” That makes our estimates better than before but still not perfect. “Tomorrow we just might be dangerous.” We should be getting better with our estimates as time moves on. If not, we aren’t very good learners.
9. We have ALWAYS said (beginning at NAB 2006) that “everything is subject to change, including specs and delivery dates.” Yet, it seems to be human nature to forget this caveat. So we will just not give absolute, drop-dead delivery dates anymore. Things will be released when we are finished, and finished properly. We’ll continue to give regular updates (every week or so) on specific milestones so you have some idea what’s going on.
The good news is that the EPIC/Scarlet project is better than ever expected. The images coming out of the new Mysterium-X sensor have exceeded expectations. The flexibility of the modular system has surprised all of us. The system is significantly better now than when it was 1st announced. Now let’s get to it.
