Dec

31

New Gadgets but Where’s the Quality?

Everyone seems to have a new gadget out that is half toy and half technical advancement. New features abound, storage sizes are reduced, processers are moving at higher and higher rates of speed and yet a fair amount of time is spent by the end user in just attempting to get whatever that new gadget is to work. We love our toys but are not necessarily happy with the vendors who continue to compete to be the first to market with a new feature or gimmick, failing to simply make sure whatever it is they are selling actually performs as advertised.

Why are we not happy with those vendors? While we fight for that new toy or technical advancement, we become somewhat jaded after not that long because with any new toy or technology comes the infamous bugs. Vendors, in their mad rush to market, forget (or are not overly concerned about) this thing called quality. What happened to testing for bugs and testing for software/hardware compatibility before moving new hardware or software into production? Also, what happened to real technical support (I doubt I’m the only one to sit on hold endlessly only to find myself talking to someone who, in the end, needs to transfer the call to someone else because they just aren’t trained to answer the question. So why route my call to them in the first place?).

A couple of months ago I published an article encouraging organizations to not move to Microsoft Vista until most of the bugs are worked out. It should be noted, though, that Microsoft is not the only vendor guilty of pushing a product before it is ready for prime time. As an example, I decided to combine my PDA and my mobile phone recently. I was looking for that cool phone that had all of the functionality of a PDA and then some and accommodated a move to a different wireless vendor (mine sort of sucked). I decided to go with the Samsung i760 offered by Verizon because it provided me with what I needed in one device where before I was using two.

As with many new products today that rely on ever changing technology, the Samsung i760 coupled with Verizon Wireless and Windows Mobile 6.0 (synced through a Vista machine) did not function as promised. This is no different when I acquired my HP iPAQ 2795 with the cool biometric security and the ability to encrypt stored files (at least it’s cool to some of us security geeks). I returned my HP iPAQ for replacements at least three times before most of the problems were resolved. This tells you that vendors still have yet to hear the message that quality is a good thing. While I haven’t returned my Samsung yet, I have had to install and re-install the sync software three times, do a hard reset on my smart phone and reload applications and still can’t wirelessly synchronize my e-mail with Verizon’s wireless sync server (Verizon’s working on the trouble ticket as I write this).

What is my point? My point is no matter the hardware or software, especially if it is designed to provide improved security protection or privacy protection, be wary when you are considering a purchase of something new or an upgrade, even from the most reputable vendor. Most have decided to follow the path of first to market rather than make sure this thing actually works and plays well in the sandbox when it comes to introducing new or upgraded software or hardware to the unexpected user.

Even those pesky security patches vendors such as Microsoft continues to issue can create more problems than they solve. As an example, one of the recent Vista updates created havoc with my file extension recognition through Windows to the point that an .exe file is an unknown file. Give me a break folks!

While it may purport to do wonderful things or address identified vulnerabilities, it is wise to make sure, especially security or privacy related software or hardware, that it is sufficiently secure (in other words, has been on the market long enough to work out the bugs and the interoperability issues while providing the required privacy and security promised), operates as advertised and plays well within your network or even on your home PC. Testing in a controlled environment is a good thing. The bottom line is caveat emptor. I still too clearly remember the days when vendors were appearing from everywhere touting their HIPAA solutions while not even able to spell HIPAA correctly and these weren’t all fly-by-night vendors.