>> MS has set the standard that other companies are more than happy to follow because MS severely LOWERED IT. <<

While I agree with you that it would be nice if software were not released with known bugs in it, that simply is not the way the software business works. And the practice certainly wasn't started by Microsoft. Even companies with far lower profiles than Microsoft have practical considerations associated with release dates. Customers have been told the software will be available at some point in time. Often they have already bought the software or upgrade based on that date estimate. You can't sell software on the basis of "you'll get it just as soon as our Q/A group says all the bugs are out, whenever that happens to be." It. Don't. Work. That. Way. Again, this is not a Microsoft phenomonom or one started by Microsoft. I worked for a software house for 10 years and we did it exactly the same way. Not because we didn't care about getting the bugs out but because the development group did not work in a vacuum. We had sales, shipping, and accounting considerations. And we didn't even have to worry about some of the date-driven things Microsoft does -- launch events, ship dates to resellers (who have catalogs and whatnot to get out), timed "leaks" to the press, etc. The release date drives everything. You get out as many bugs as you can by the ship date, that's all. Everything after that is a service pack.

Not ideal, and not the way many of us on the development side would like it to work, but these are the facts of life in the packaged software business.

Mike