Demos vs. Products

I'm a huge fan of demos -- so is Khem. They are a very important part of product development. They are a way to ship early and get critical feedback. Demos during the course of real product development are essential.

There are some challenges or risks with demos. One is that when managers see a demo, they sometimes assume the product is nearly done when this is rarely the case.

Other demos are for the purpose of evaluating some technology with little concern as to how it is implemented. The world has exploded with "maker" stuff (Arduinos, Raspberry PIs, etc). These are very useful for one-off lab experiments, but experience has taught me that it is generally a bad idea to ship products (at least industrial products) based on "maker" technology.

Products have considerations like cost, manufacturability, maintainability, reliability, and availability over a lifecycle that can be 5, 10, or more years for industrial products. We can ignore these concerns for the demo, but they can't be ignored for the product.