[loewenskind]

>Can you think of a person who has been advertising vaporware that you would not listen to?

Microsoft. I ignore anything they say until they have something I can actually buy. They've made too many announcements that were just never spoken of again.

[coliveira]

Ok, so your example just shows that you can be super successful using the vaporware strategy...

[kranner]

Only if that's all there was to Microsoft's success.

[loewenskind]

Their successful in spite of announcing a lot of vaporware, but their biggest win of all; windows was top secret until it was released, right?

[krakensden]

My understanding was that the first release of Windows came a long time after the initial announcement, but it was a little before my time.

Microsoft's usual strategy, that no one has explicitly stated yet, is to try and discourage its customers from buying a product by promising the moon 'just around the corner' for a couple years. Microsoft is seen as a better long term bet, and this depresses sales even though it doesn't actually have a product yet, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of the failure of its competitors.

So when people are angrily referring to Microsoft vaporware, that's what they're talking about.