:''This article refers to the term as used in computer industry. For the company, see VaporWare (company).'' Vaporware (also called vapourware) is software or hardware which is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge, either with or without a protracted Software development cycle. The term implies deception, or at least a negligent degree of optimism; that is, it implies that the ''announcer'' knows that software development is in too early a stage to support responsible statements about its completion date, feature set, or even feasibility. There is a similarity between vaporware and a species of hoax; both involve promoting a product or event which cannot later be produced. 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 Clonaid, the Raelian company which promised proof of human cloning; or any number of perpetual motion machine "inventors". 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 or cannot be produced. ==History== Perhaps the very first example of vaporware in the field of computing was Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine of 1834-1837, which remained unfinished for lack of funds. The word ''vaporware'' itself was popularized in the trade press circa 1984, perhaps in response to Ovation Technologies' Ovation, an integrated software package for DOS. Ovation was announced in 1983. Company management was widely lauded for their skill in securing venture financing, generating "buzz", and giving superb demonstrations showing a product that, had it existed, would have been greatly superior to Lotus Software Lotus 1-2-3. Unfortunately, they neglected to arrange for development of an actual product. CIO magazine[[Vaporware#References|[ 1] ]]credits Esther Dyson as having coined the word in 1984. Paul Andrews[[Vaporware#References|[ 2] ]], however, states that "Although 'vaporware' was perhaps popularized by Esther, she credits Ann Winblad, who in turn heard it from Microsoft's Mark Ursino... but Stewart Alsop...may have been the one to turn it into everyday lingo with his P.C. Letter list."
==Varieties==
In some cases, vaporware may be the result of a trial balloon which "doesn't fly". 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 as a form of FUD; if the customer believes the technology hype, they may put off purchasing the real product to wait for its vaporous rival to mature.
Sometimes vaporware is the result of over-optimism on the part of a well-intending organization, and may actually materialize after a long waiting time (sometimes years). One example of this was the long-delayed Apple Macintosh word processor FullWrite, announced by Ann Arbor Softworks in January 1987 for delivery in April, and actually delivered in late 1988. 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 (computer) and several other projects were either late, unfinished, or entirely fictitious.
Sometimes the delays or eventual shelving of a software product may be caused by a corporate merger or internal strife within the company.
Often vaporware that does materialize fails to live up to expectations. One example is the game Daikatana, which was announced in 1997 but did not ship until 2000. Many who had waited felt the gameplay was disappointingly uninteresting. Ultima IX, another example, was poor consolation for those who had waited since 1994, only to find the version released late in 1999 was very buggy and impossible to run on many common graphics cards.
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; or the GNU Hurd, the free software kernel whose place in the free software world has been (by and large) filled by Linux. (The Hurd may yet be completed, but its original intended role as part of a complete GPL Unix system has been fulfilled.)
In addition to historical examples, there are many products whose ultimate fate is unknown, but which as of 2004 are considered vaporware. One such example is the computer game Duke Nukem Forever, which has been in development for over 7 years. The game won Wired News' Vaporware Awards in 2001 and 2002, got second place in 2000, and in 2003 was given the Lifetime Achievement Award for its perpetual vaporware status. Some games can become vaporware even if they are the subject of a promotional campaign. Such was the case of a game based upon the TV series ''Aeon Flux'' which was the subject of TV commercials both broadcast and included on home video releases of the series, but the game itself was never released.
Also worth noting are the Indrema and The Phantom (game system) video game consoles. The latter took Wired's top "award" in 2004. Microsoft's Longhorn OS, announced for 2004 and now called Longwait by wags, garnered third place. Wired noted that a supposedly key feature, the WinFS file system, has already been dropped from it, and quoting 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." As of 28 April 2005 LongHorn will no longer ship with trusted computing either.
==See also==
* List of cancelled video games
==References==
* [http://www.cio.com/archive/010100/time.html These Are the Days to Remember], Howard Baldwin, CIO Magazine, December 15, 1999 - article crediting Ester Dyson for the term.
* [http://memex.org/cm-archive7.html message by Paul Andrews], where he says Dyson credits Ann Winblad, and that Stewart Alsop.
==External links==
*[http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,66195,00.html Wired News' 2004 Vaporware Awards] ([http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,61935,00.html 2003], [http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,57023,00.html 2002], [http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,49326,00.html 2001], [http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,40484,00.html 2000], [http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,33142,00.html 1999], [http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,16974,00.html 1998], [http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,9431,00.html 1997])
*[http://whereisphantom.com/ Where Is Phantom??] - ''"The site for all Critics, Cynics, Detractors and Doubters"'', a site about the controversy over Infinium Labs's Phantom
*[http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.humor/browse_thread/thread/3441561eb26650da/0f3f2cb41c16772c?q=vaporware&rnum=1&hl=en#0f3f2cb41c16772c 30 reasons why vaporware is better than real software] Rec.humor posting.
Vaporware
A recent edit makes minor corrections in a sentence which I question altogether. The article says "A widely cited example of this is Microsoft's strategy in Windows 95 against IBM's OS/2." How was this vaporware? It has been widely asserted (and I happen to believe it to be true) that Microsoft executed what was called a "head-fake" in connection with OS/2 and Windows 3.0 (''not'' Windows 95). That is, publicly they told the press—and also told developers in at least some meetings—that OS/2, which they were jointly developing with IBM, was the OS which developers should be targeting, the future of GUIs on the PC, etc. When Windows 3.0 came out, Microsoft seemed to be giving it far more attention and promotion than expected. Developers were caught unprepared. At least some major developers had targeted major efforts toward OS/2 and were not ready for the emergence and mainstream success of Windows 3.0. Microsoft, in particular, was ready with Excel when Windows 3.0 launched, while Lotus's release of 1-2-3 was greatly delayed. This was, however, the exact opposite of vaporware. Windows 3.0 existed and so did OS/2. Furthermore, OS/2 was shipping, and, if I remember correctly, was up to at least version 1.2 when Windows 3.0 was announced (it was established and modestly successful, not embryonic or easily killed). And neither Windows 3.0 nor Windows 95 was vaporware. Windows 95 shipped in, IIRC, 1995—''late'' 1995 but 1995. The deception, if there was a deception, on Microsoft's part was to minimize the importance of Windows 3.0 in order to secure a headstart for their own application development for the system. Anyway, if nobody gives a rationale as to why "Microsoft's strategy in Windows 95 against IBM's OS/2" was an example of vaporware, I think I'm going to remove that sentence. Comments and discussions welcome. User:Dpbsmith 11:36, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC) ---- Perhaps a "List of vaporware" reference table article might supplement this one? -- User talk:LGagnon ---- I don't know if the recent addition of the Phantom console should count. Many people suspect it of being vaporware, but in all fairness we should wait until it is proven to be such. -- User talk:LGagnon :Good point. But I think that the definition should be changed, because the article seems to be contradictory. The definition says "never emerges", but then the article talks about "may actually materialize after a long waiting time". I think it should be safe to say that a product is vaporware if it is considered to be such by the market. Consider Wired News' Vaporware Awards (which should be covered in more details, by the way). Vox populi vox dei - if people thought Win2k and OS X were vaporware, weren't they? Ditto for, say, Half-Life 2 (top vaporware in 2003) and Phantom (number 3 in 2003). The fact that they may be released doesn't change the fact that they were vaporware at certain stage. :: If that's the case, a lot of software and hardware could be considered vaporware. There are tons of pieces of software and hardware that are believed at first to never see a release. With that much to consider, we'd have too much to mention to be fair, and it would just look rediculous eventually. It's best that we just concentrate on what was never released for the sake of fairness and not going overboard with a list of could-have-beens. -- User talk:LGagnon :::Again, that makes sense, but you can't prove a negative. If we stick to the letter of the existing definition, we may not include any product, unless the company developing it goes under, their office is demolished, all blueprints and prototypes burned and all the personnel executed. Otherwise, there is always a chance the product will see the light of the day. :::I think a better solution would be to admit that there are two definitions - one strict (as defined now), another more commonly used and describing the product, which as presented to the public is mostly vapor. This second definition is clearly used when people talk about DNF and in Wired News' Vaporwire Awards. By this definition we can call DNF vaporware, because as of today there are still no solid proofs that the game actually exists. Phantom was rightly called vaporware, because it was a known risky concept and only a few mock ups were ever shown (until the release). The fact that Phantom was finally released and DNF might very well be released this year or next does not make them not vaporware. It just makes them vaporware finally realised as a real product. :::We really need another definition, because otherwise we would have no right to call DNF vaporware and that would be horribly wrong.User:Paranoid 18:10, 25 May 2004 (UTC) ::::VapourWare is software/hardware that may never be released, or is delayed for an exended period of time and if it is released it does not come out as advertised (sometimes but rarely for the better) --User:Weyoun6 07:29, 18 May 2005 (UTC) ==Advice from Wikipedia:Peer review== *The statement about the GNU Hurd is wrong, for one. Just for starters, it was not started in 1984. Suggest time on Wikipedia:Peer Review. User:Dan Gardner 04:22, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC) *Not sure if this can ever be much of an article to feature. I mean you've got what vapourware is (two lines enough?) and then it's just examples. If there is a way to expand it, I suppose it is an interesting topic to feature - non-techies may not be familiar with it. User:Zoney 14:51, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC) == Vapourware? == Really? Can anyone from a Commonwealth country confirm this spelling? --User:Dante Alighieri | User talk:Dante Alighieri 15:34, May 11, 2005 (UTC) *It gets slathers of hits both in Google and Google Groups--about 13,000 for "vapourware" in Groups, compared to 25,000 for "vaporware"--and the meaning from context seems to be the same as that of "vaporware," so it looks OK to me. User:Dpbsmith User_talk:dpbsmith 20:13, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) == Airware? == I've removed the comment that it can also be called "airware" because * I've never heard it called that; * The [http://www.bartleby.com/61/64/V0026400.html American Heritage Dictionary] has an entry for "vaporware," but the entry does not mention "airware" as an alternate, and has no entry for "airware" * A quick eyeball scan of the first few hundred Google hits for "airware" turns up only legitimate company names, mostly not software companies, and no indication of its use in a software context; * A quick eyeball scan of the first hundred Google hits in Google Groups turns up references to legitimate products, software and otherwise, that are actually named "airware" and no indication of its use as a synonym for "vaporware." If anyone wants to reinsert it they should provide some kind of source citation that shows that it is really in widespread use as a synonym for "vaporware." User:Dpbsmith User_talk:dpbsmith 20:09, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) OK - I'll go along with that. I remember hearing the term "airware", but I guess it has fallen out of use, like so many other short-lived innovative terms. By the way, the reason Google turns up so many commercial hits has to do with who pays them for product placement. Try submitting a new webpage to them - it's not free the way it was in the early days. User:Cbdorsett 21:08, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Vaporware (or vapourware) is a term applied to software or hardware which is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge, either with or without a protracted Software development cycle. The term implies deception, or at least a negligent degree of optimism; that is, it implies that the ''announcer'' knows that software development is in too early a stage to support responsible statements about its completion date, feature set, or even feasibility. ---- This category contains articles on products (hardware, software, other) that can be considered (or were once considered) vaporware. Software
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
Words begining with Vaporware:
Vaporware
Vaporware
Vaporware
VaporWare_(company)
Vaporware
:''This article refers to the term as used in computer industry. For the company, see VaporWare (company).'' Vaporware (also called vapourware) is software or hardware which is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge, either with or without a protracted Software development cycle. The term implies deception, or at least a negligent degree of optimism; that is, it implies that the ''announcer'' knows that software development is in too early a stage to support responsible statements about its completion date, feature set, or even feasibility. There is a similarity between vaporware and a species of hoax; both involve promoting a product or event which cannot later be produced. 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 Clonaid, the Raelian company which promised proof of human cloning; or any number of perpetual motion machine "inventors". 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 or cannot be produced. ==History== Perhaps the very first example of vaporware in the field of computing was Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine of 1834-1837, which remained unfinished for lack of funds. The word ''vaporware'' itself was popularized in the trade press circa 1984, perhaps in response to Ovation Technologies' Ovation, an integrated software package for DOS. Ovation was announced in 1983. Company management was widely lauded for their skill in securing venture financing, generating "buzz", and giving superb demonstrations showing a product that, had it existed, would have been greatly superior to Lotus Software Lotus 1-2-3. Unfortunately, they neglected to arrange for development of an actual product. CIO magazine[[Vaporware#References|
Vaporware
A recent edit makes minor corrections in a sentence which I question altogether. The article says "A widely cited example of this is Microsoft's strategy in Windows 95 against IBM's OS/2." How was this vaporware? It has been widely asserted (and I happen to believe it to be true) that Microsoft executed what was called a "head-fake" in connection with OS/2 and Windows 3.0 (''not'' Windows 95). That is, publicly they told the press—and also told developers in at least some meetings—that OS/2, which they were jointly developing with IBM, was the OS which developers should be targeting, the future of GUIs on the PC, etc. When Windows 3.0 came out, Microsoft seemed to be giving it far more attention and promotion than expected. Developers were caught unprepared. At least some major developers had targeted major efforts toward OS/2 and were not ready for the emergence and mainstream success of Windows 3.0. Microsoft, in particular, was ready with Excel when Windows 3.0 launched, while Lotus's release of 1-2-3 was greatly delayed. This was, however, the exact opposite of vaporware. Windows 3.0 existed and so did OS/2. Furthermore, OS/2 was shipping, and, if I remember correctly, was up to at least version 1.2 when Windows 3.0 was announced (it was established and modestly successful, not embryonic or easily killed). And neither Windows 3.0 nor Windows 95 was vaporware. Windows 95 shipped in, IIRC, 1995—''late'' 1995 but 1995. The deception, if there was a deception, on Microsoft's part was to minimize the importance of Windows 3.0 in order to secure a headstart for their own application development for the system. Anyway, if nobody gives a rationale as to why "Microsoft's strategy in Windows 95 against IBM's OS/2" was an example of vaporware, I think I'm going to remove that sentence. Comments and discussions welcome. User:Dpbsmith 11:36, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC) ---- Perhaps a "List of vaporware" reference table article might supplement this one? -- User talk:LGagnon ---- I don't know if the recent addition of the Phantom console should count. Many people suspect it of being vaporware, but in all fairness we should wait until it is proven to be such. -- User talk:LGagnon :Good point. But I think that the definition should be changed, because the article seems to be contradictory. The definition says "never emerges", but then the article talks about "may actually materialize after a long waiting time". I think it should be safe to say that a product is vaporware if it is considered to be such by the market. Consider Wired News' Vaporware Awards (which should be covered in more details, by the way). Vox populi vox dei - if people thought Win2k and OS X were vaporware, weren't they? Ditto for, say, Half-Life 2 (top vaporware in 2003) and Phantom (number 3 in 2003). The fact that they may be released doesn't change the fact that they were vaporware at certain stage. :: If that's the case, a lot of software and hardware could be considered vaporware. There are tons of pieces of software and hardware that are believed at first to never see a release. With that much to consider, we'd have too much to mention to be fair, and it would just look rediculous eventually. It's best that we just concentrate on what was never released for the sake of fairness and not going overboard with a list of could-have-beens. -- User talk:LGagnon :::Again, that makes sense, but you can't prove a negative. If we stick to the letter of the existing definition, we may not include any product, unless the company developing it goes under, their office is demolished, all blueprints and prototypes burned and all the personnel executed. Otherwise, there is always a chance the product will see the light of the day. :::I think a better solution would be to admit that there are two definitions - one strict (as defined now), another more commonly used and describing the product, which as presented to the public is mostly vapor. This second definition is clearly used when people talk about DNF and in Wired News' Vaporwire Awards. By this definition we can call DNF vaporware, because as of today there are still no solid proofs that the game actually exists. Phantom was rightly called vaporware, because it was a known risky concept and only a few mock ups were ever shown (until the release). The fact that Phantom was finally released and DNF might very well be released this year or next does not make them not vaporware. It just makes them vaporware finally realised as a real product. :::We really need another definition, because otherwise we would have no right to call DNF vaporware and that would be horribly wrong.User:Paranoid 18:10, 25 May 2004 (UTC) ::::VapourWare is software/hardware that may never be released, or is delayed for an exended period of time and if it is released it does not come out as advertised (sometimes but rarely for the better) --User:Weyoun6 07:29, 18 May 2005 (UTC) ==Advice from Wikipedia:Peer review== *The statement about the GNU Hurd is wrong, for one. Just for starters, it was not started in 1984. Suggest time on Wikipedia:Peer Review. User:Dan Gardner 04:22, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC) *Not sure if this can ever be much of an article to feature. I mean you've got what vapourware is (two lines enough?) and then it's just examples. If there is a way to expand it, I suppose it is an interesting topic to feature - non-techies may not be familiar with it. User:Zoney 14:51, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC) == Vapourware? == Really? Can anyone from a Commonwealth country confirm this spelling? --User:Dante Alighieri | User talk:Dante Alighieri 15:34, May 11, 2005 (UTC) *It gets slathers of hits both in Google and Google Groups--about 13,000 for "vapourware" in Groups, compared to 25,000 for "vaporware"--and the meaning from context seems to be the same as that of "vaporware," so it looks OK to me. User:Dpbsmith User_talk:dpbsmith 20:13, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) == Airware? == I've removed the comment that it can also be called "airware" because * I've never heard it called that; * The [http://www.bartleby.com/61/64/V0026400.html American Heritage Dictionary] has an entry for "vaporware," but the entry does not mention "airware" as an alternate, and has no entry for "airware" * A quick eyeball scan of the first few hundred Google hits for "airware" turns up only legitimate company names, mostly not software companies, and no indication of its use in a software context; * A quick eyeball scan of the first hundred Google hits in Google Groups turns up references to legitimate products, software and otherwise, that are actually named "airware" and no indication of its use as a synonym for "vaporware." If anyone wants to reinsert it they should provide some kind of source citation that shows that it is really in widespread use as a synonym for "vaporware." User:Dpbsmith User_talk:dpbsmith 20:09, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) OK - I'll go along with that. I remember hearing the term "airware", but I guess it has fallen out of use, like so many other short-lived innovative terms. By the way, the reason Google turns up so many commercial hits has to do with who pays them for product placement. Try submitting a new webpage to them - it's not free the way it was in the early days. User:Cbdorsett 21:08, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Vaporware
Vaporware (or vapourware) is a term applied to software or hardware which is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge, either with or without a protracted Software development cycle. The term implies deception, or at least a negligent degree of optimism; that is, it implies that the ''announcer'' knows that software development is in too early a stage to support responsible statements about its completion date, feature set, or even feasibility. ---- This category contains articles on products (hardware, software, other) that can be considered (or were once considered) vaporware. Software
See other meanings of words starting from letter:
V
Words begining with Vaporware:
Vaporware
Vaporware
Vaporware
VaporWare_(company)
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