new product rumors

[montanaro at sprite.crd.ge.com]

mcvax!ethz!marti at uunet.uu.net (Robert Marti) writes:
   ...By having you sign an agreement, they are basically
   just covering their asses in case they don't/can't ship as planned so that
   no customer or competitor can sue them on the basis of whatever
   information was revealed.

Whoa, there!

Sun and most other companies have much to lose by early release of
proprietary information. In a highly competitive environment, changes in
release dates by just a couple of months or weeks can translate into large
gains or losses of lots of market leverage.

If a product is being tested under non-disclosure, even the
acknowledgement that the product exists is extremely useful information
for competitors.  More damaging can be information regarding performance,
bugs, etc. Alpha and beta test software is often released to priveleged
customers to wring out bugs (especially true for alpha test software).
Great damage to a company's credibility can be done by divulging
information about pre-release software.  People reading the information
(possibly taken out of context by a competitor) may infer that the
released product is full of bugs, or performs badly.

If vendors want information leaked in order to put distance between
themselves and the information, they can give it to so-called "market
analysts". If juicy enough, it will wind up on the front page of many
trade rags. If they really don't care about information being transmitted
(or actually want it divulged), they wouldn't have made you sign the
non-disclosure in the first place. 

--
Skip Montanaro (montanaro at sprite.crd.ge.com)