What's New In BloatWare 37?

A hush comes over the audience as the house lights dim. An excited, yet restrained female voice announces over the PA system, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, our CEO, Franklin McSmug!".

With cheers and applause ringing in his ears, the middle-aged suit strides purposefully to the podium and grandly places his tablet in front of him. He beams and waits for the applause to diminish.

"Colleagues, Friends! I am so excited at the prospect of unveiling here this morning the very thing that you have all been working towards. A project which began exactly twelve months ago and which has completed on budget and on schedule. Thank you all! Thank you all!"

Wild applause. Loud sound effects accompany a flash of brilliant colours on the large screen behind McSmug.

"Here it is, folks! BloatWare version 37!"

The sound of the standing ovation can still be heard over the rock beats now pumping from the sound system. The applause gradually changes to clapping in time with the beat and in turn diminishes as the music fades and McSmug raises his hands.

"Yes, Friends, it's the moment we've all been waiting for. Our development team has really done us proud this year! So...what's new in BloatWare version 37?"

He pauses, smiles and scans the expectant faces. His smile broadens and he turns to look at the screen. The audience gasps.

"That's right! We've changed the design of the desktop icon!"

This time, the standing ovation, cheering and whistles last longer. Eventually, the audience settles.

"You know, I never thought when I first started the company back in the eighties that we would still be around today in what has been a fast-changing and competitive market."

Laughs from the audience. McSmug smiles broadly and glances at the Exit doors.

"I never thought we would make it to version 20, let alone version 37! Of course, what we did back in the eighties was revolutionary...revolutionary! No-one was able to do with their computers what we all now take for granted. No! It was version 1 of BloatWare, or, Essential Utilities as it was called then, which was the game-changer. Suddenly, people all over the world were able to do things - lots of things - that they just couldn't do before. Sure, the product was expensive. No wonder! Jefferson, the three Steves and I had spent literally months starting the company and designing the first application. We were so relieved when version 1 shipped...and shipped. Boy, how it shipped!"

Again, laughs and applause from the audience.

"With our income from version 1, we were able not only to recoup our R and D costs, but we started to expand, producing other extremely valuable products but, more importantly, creating more jobs."

More cheers and applause.

"That achievement, the creation and sustaining of jobs - something which affects all of us in this hall - is testimony to our most important skill at this point in our history - marketing."

Most of the audience cheers loudly. The tiny team of developers applaud respectfully.

"As you know, we effectively completed BloatWare by about version 4 and, ever since then, we have had to generate annual income by thinking of what else we could incorporate in the software in order to get users to spend money upgrading to the latest versions. The idea of the upgrade agreement was a brilliant wheeze to bind users in to spending money on upgrades which you all managed to convince them were necessary. That's marketing!

Thankfully, every few years or so, we are faced with a new operating system to deal with and this gives our marketing stance even more plausibility since we can say that earlier versions of BloatWare will not be fully compatible. BloatWare 36 is certainly not 100% compatible with this year's operating system release. A round of golf with 'you know who' saw to that!"

Laughter from the hall.

"Of course, our existing customers will not be paying hundreds of dollars to upgrade to 37 just for the new icon. Oh no, we've fixed a few bugs as well! So you see, value for money is our promise and that's what we deliver. Now, Friends...it's over to you. You can convince users that they need the new icon. You can ensure that we continue to ship more than our target. You can save your jobs!"