Inside the Web 2.0 Report, this graph was displayed which shows the power of releasing code often. As it turns out, Flickr has grown from obscurity just a few years ago, to a powerhouse owned by Yahoo! in between Microsoft Windows release cycles. Wow!
A few quick observations:
- Both companies are successful. In fact, Microsoft Windows has made far more money than Flickr ever will.
- Web Apps have the luxury of being hosted, and this means that new code only needs to work in a dedicated environment. Windows has to work in a number of scenarios.
- This graph ignores the various upgrades available from Windows Update.
3 responses to “Flickr Release History”
“Web Apps have the luxury of being hosted” … mmmmmmm
Hmm. My thought would be that Flickr’s success has to do with the product / service they offer, the opportunistic timing and the audience that initially drove it more than quick, multiple code releases in a short time frame.
It’s apples to oranges (as you’ve pointed out) to compare the release history of a web-app against an OS. I’d like to see Flickr’s release history compared to an equally successful web-app or community site.
It’s always fun to dog on MSWindows, but really isn’t that dog getting old and tired? Find the release history for Apple’s OS and compare it to Windows, then you’ll see what that strategy was all about.
http://davidbau.com/archives/2006/03/25/vista_and_the_altair.html