Ok, so over the last 30 years or so, Microsoft has made a lot of software. Probably more software than any single entity on the face of the earth. The first two decades of software was rough when released in beta. If it was even released in beta, or alpha, or as service packs. Most IT people, software developers, or anyone using software would almost always steer clear of beta, alpha, or service updates of software.
Why?
That is the easy thing to answer. Most of the time, the software would not even work. At least not in any semblance of the way it was supposed to.
Fast Forward to Today. . .
Software works. Rarely does one download software that is in beta and it doesn't work. At least on a fundamental, core functional basis. This is very much apparent at Microsoft. The competition lit a fire and Microsoft has answered with more frequent releases, more service packs and updates to keep things secure and up to date, more quality packed into every release. Why did they make this massive transition?
Agility.
Yup, I said it, the firestorm that has been the Agile movement has caused a major upheaval at Microsoft. Out went the Waterfalls and in came the Maneuvers of Agile. In all honesty, if someone is still arguing the tenants of this success, they?re lost in a bygone era of questioning agile processes. Of course, I will admit, many of the processes are up for debate in various ways. But the core culture of software development has been dragged kicking and screaming.
Gone are the grognards sitting in the corner being anti-social, hacking away on some code that nobody else will ever be able to maintain. Gone are those days when a development team works in a vacuum, and fails. Instead we have faster teams, more customer involvement, iterations or sprints, and in the end higher quality software.
The reason I bring this up really has one simple intention. Stop freaking out over beta software. Implement things with it. Use it. Love the stuff. I am regularly using beta software, with all sorts of new goodies, and releasing these projects into production environments. You might say, "really? that is so dangerous", but I have not had a single failure, crash, or error related to a beta issue in production for at least 5 years. Back when Agile was really just starting to gain steam to run the course. So use new software, stay on the bleeding edge, and help everyone by helping yourself keep up to date!
