Ah, the ‘Good’ Old Days of Product Testing

When I first started working in this industry, lo those many years ago, product releases came very slowly and pointedly. You usually had plenty of warning that a new product or product release was on its way, and the path to the products you cared enough about to test was pretty well-trod. If a vendor had Build 134942 of a product, you may have known about it, but you sure didn’t test it. There were lots of products out there, but it seemed like it was a lot easier to keep abreast of what was important.

Today, we still get a heads-up when a new product or product update is coming, but there’s typically far less time between when that heads-up comes and when the product is available. You may have found out about the update on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, a blog, an RSS feed or–maybe, just maybe–a publication printed on paper! (More likely, though, via your smartphone or iPad.) And, there are now not only more products to wrap your head around, but more technology and delivery platforms to consider. Add to that the plethora of “pundits” providing profound prognostications about technology, and decision making suddenly gets crazily difficult.

The eWEEK Labs site was designed to harness IT professionals’ insight born of experience. The site offers a platform for generating and consuming reviews of the products being used in organizations, and for focused information about the newest products you should have on your radars.

We invite you to be an active participant in this community by submitting a review. To do so, simply search on the product you would like to review, pull up the Product Card for that product and then click “Submit Review.” If a product you would like to review is not currently posted on the site, simply drop me a line at debra.donston@ziffdavisenterprise.com and we will get it posted for you pronto.

The site is still a beta, and we are working hard to make it better. We will soon be adding reviews features and case studies that will round out community reviews, as well as tools such as Critical Testing Criteria. The latter is designed to ease the job of testing products in specific categories, as well as to incite discussion about the evaluation process itself.

Please let me know what you’d like to see, what you’d like to see more of and what you’d like never to see again. We’re doing our best to make eWEEK Labs a go-to resource for IT decision makers.