It doesn’t matter what I want, my Mac is a work in progress, just like Dick Cheney’s pacemaker. Why do you think that they keep releasing updates?

Yes, Boeing ships updates too. (One of the more obvious is the upturned winglets that have been retrofitted.)

> The problem is that “process work” only works for some kinds of software, not physical products, and not mission-critical products.

You don’t understand what “process” means.

There is no “last word”. There’s only “what you’ve got now” and “what’s out there”. If “now” good enough compared to what’s out there and the need, you ship, knowing full well that something better is likely to be available in the future.

And, yes, that’s true of “mission critical”. The only thing that “mission critical” changes is the definition of “good enough to ship”.

Yes, this involves judgement. Managing the risk/reward requires domain knowledge. You’d think that journalists would have it wrt journalism. (They don’t have a prayer of having it in other areas.)

What’s more, I think Benioff will change his mind the first time he tells his engineers to ship a version of Salesforce which isn’t ready rather than “delay” it – because at that point, his customers will express their preference rather vocally.

Twitter is a messy mechanism for multilevel marketing. Take traditional media outlets and smash them into millions of pieces. Yeah, you TOO can become a micro-media outlet with your own following. Cynicism aside, this story reeks of instant gratification. Not surprising in our hedonistic, it’s-all-about-me business culture.