I work as a test architect for one of the leaders in CAD industry - on contract from a Bangalore services company. Today morning, I received a mail from one of our colleagues in the US mentioning a hotfix release for our software product. I clicked on the link in the mail to get to the hotfix. This is what the webpage said....(I've replaced the company name with XXX, for sake for privacy)
XXX DOES NOT GUARANTEE THAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SUCCESSFULLY DOWNLOAD OR IMPLEMENT ANY SERVICE PACK OR WORKAROUND, OR ANY OF THE TIPS, TRICKS, EXAMPLES OR SUGGESTIONS OUTLINED IN ANY XXX PRODUCT SUPPORT TECHNICAL DOCUMENTS. TECHNICAL DOCUMENTS, SERVICE PACKS AND WORKAROUNDS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU. XXX PROVIDES TECHNICAL DOCUMENTS, SERVICE PACKS AND WORKAROUNDS "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL XXX OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER INCLUDING DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, LOSS OF DATA, OR LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS OR SPECIAL DAMAGES, THAT MAY OCCUR AS A RESULT OF IMPLEMENTING ANY SERVICE PACK OR WORKAROUND, OR ANY SUGGESTION OUTLINED IN ANY XXX PRODUCT SUPPORT TECHNICAL DOCUMENT, EVEN IF XXX OR ITS SUPPLIERS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
The text in this paragraph, if you read it entirely and understood correctly, effectively states that the company will not be responsible for their own product in any way. All of you, users of our product, are basically fools, and we can't be liable for your foolishness. If you spent hundreds of dollars to buy our product, thinking that you will be able to get some benefit out of it, what else are you, but a fool? This is way we live, and feed ourselves and our families. (Internal talk: If you wish to call it cheating, so be it; we don't mind and we don't care!)
When I read this paragraph, my reaction was mixed - anger, sadness, despair and all sorts of negative feelings rushed into my mind. It is during such times, I feel awkward to tell people that that I am working for an industry who can't even guarantee that people can download their work product from the link provided at the website, let alone able to work reasonably flawlessly with it. This is not a distinctive case. This is the state of all software product companies all around the world, 'serving' customers who pay hundreds (sometimes thousands or even millions) of dollars to use their 'superior' products.
Software services companies are no better, because after all these are the people who serve such product companies. Imagine, it is a double stake - the supplier in one situation turns customer in a different one. Don't complicate it more, I will tell it in simple terms - software product companies basically fool around with their users and software service companies fool around with the product companies who they contract with. So, as in the famous quote from Lincoln, software industry is of the fools, for the fools and by the fools (because we use software produced by somebody else)....
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