Shoutbox

Do You Think Microsoft should use the public as there testers??


Come on people Vote..

They do use the public as their testers, but they only choose a select few who apply to test for them .

Yes they should, they save money and the fans get to use new and exciting software...everyone wins.

ur going to have to vote again as i pressed wrong button

cursed mircrosoft

The reason why the public is used as testers is because of the scale of the testing, they can get millions of people trying different things, and situations that the MSN team might not ever even thing of trying, and see how the public reacts to changes they've made

Also there are billions of different software and hardware combinations that the MSN team can't test compatability for them selves. this is why MSN chooses to use the public in there tests(most of them).

During the beta stages, the previous final version, in this case MSN 7.5 is still avalible for download, and in this case, its recomended if you do not like WLM with out Plus! Live.

sorry i also PMed this to you. i thought this was in the poll center

I don't quite understand the No votes in the poll, as Nitemare said, if the public didn't test you are left with two scenarios.[list=1]
[*]Products take forever to be released
[*]Products are extremly buggy.
[/list]

quote:

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Originally posted by Carltos Cool
Yes they should, they save money and the fans get to use new and exciting software...everyone wins.

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not at all...

letting the public beta test right away will cost more money!
And using "exciting new software" is a motivation from people simply wanting beta software for the heck of having it; this should never ever be a motivation to become beta tester.

quote:

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Originally posted by GiantSpider
I don't quite understand the No votes in the poll, as Nitemare said, if the public didn't test you are left with two scenarios.[list=1]
[*]Products take forever to be released
[*]Products are extremly buggy.[/list]

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"Public" should never beta test a product just like that.

Reason being that it is much too dangerous for most of the public to use beta products in the first place (heck, most of the public wouldn't even know they're using a beta or even don't know what is involved in testing a product or what not). Also, when beta tests are only done in public, the creatiors would be overwelmed with a massive amount of reports and most reports would be about stuff they already know or stuff which aren't actual bugs within the program being tested. In other words, iether they need to hire more staff to handle all those reports, or either the releasing can be delayed because they put more time in reading all the (useless) reports instead of actually programming...

There are many many disadvantages to simply let everybody beta test just like that.

And in the poll there is no clear description made of what "public" means. They are quite logical and serious developpers will know why... Doing beta test for a selective public audience is much better, but this distinction is not made in the pollin the poll. Hence the no votes...

Not to mention it is very lame for a company to hide behind the "its a beta, so live with it" approach when bugs aren't fixed.

A serious developping process for a professional product happens behind the scenes! Only at a later stage it can become "public" to a select few, and after that to a greater audience, etc...

IMO it should be Publicly beta tested .. just like Free Open source OS's are, but the general idea is to know thta these betas will be unstable an can cause problems, people shouldnt be testing them just for the latest features etc

As you say Cookie, in the poll there is no indication as that what "Pubic" entails. I was using the term to mean simply, "Non-MS employes." Not the general public.

Imo the public should test it. Its a good thing .... but off late people want to do it "for the heck of it" which is aweful. People do it cause they can tell their friends, "See im a MS Beta tester" ffs do your job. Dont do it just to show off

quote:

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Originally posted by GiantSpider
I was using the term to mean simply, "Non-MS employes." Not the general public.

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Here the term "public" refers to non-ms employees afaik