Journey of a Software Product: Exploring the Life Cycle in the Tech Industry
Table of contents
In the software industry, a product’s life cycle spans from development to retirement, mostly divided into phases like Stealth Mode, Into-Market Mode, Retire Mode, and Newer Version.
These phases help developers and users track the product’s stage, anticipate updates, and manage its evolution. Each phase has distinct activities and goals, ensuring a structured approach to development, deployment, and phase-out.
With every new version, whether it is a major change or a minor fix, versioning provides a way to track progress and communicate changes clearly. For users, it ensures they stay on the most latest version, and for developers, it ensures the software meets the needs of its users while maintaining quality and security.
The typical stages in the software product life cycle
Stealth Mode (Requirement gathering and development)
Into-Market Mode (Maintenance)
Retire Mode (End of Support)
Newer Version (Update/Upgrade)
Understanding each phase in detail
1. Stealth Mode: The Product Development Phase
Stealth Mode is the first stage in the software life cycle. During this phase, the product is in development and has very limited visibility outside the company. The product is not available for general public use. This phase is often referred to as the innovation and testing phase. Important things in Stealth Mode:
Development and Innovation: During Stealth Mode, the development team works on building the product, defining its core features, and ensuring it meets the goals set by the business.
Testing Use Cases: The team tests different use cases and scenarios to ensure that the product behaves as expected. This phase is crucial because the product may undergo several revisions before it's ready for a public release.
Documentation: The team focuses on documenting the product’s functionality, workflows, and known issues. This documentation is helpful for future phases and updates.
2. To-Market Mode (Maintenance):
Releasing and Supporting the Product Once the product is developed, it enters the Into-Market Mode, where it is made available to customers or end-users. This is the phase where the product starts being used by the public.
Important thing in Into-Market Mode:
User Adoption and Feedback: This phase is where the product is exposed to real users, and they begin to provide feedback. Users might report issues (bugs) or request additional features.
Stability: The primary focus during this phase is to resolve bugs and make sure the product is stable. Often, patch updates are released to fix issues and improve stability.
Feature Updates: In addition to fixing bugs, the development team may release minor feature updates based on user feedback or market demands.
Maintenance and Support: The maintenance phase focuses on ensuring the product remains functional and up to date with the latest changes.
This could include:
Bug fixes for issues discovered post-release. Security patches to address vulnerabilities.
Upgrades to third-party libraries used by the product, ensuring the product is compatible with newer versions of external tools and libraries.
Retire Mode (End of Support):
Eventually, every software product will reach a point where it no longer receives active development or support. This is known as the Retire Mode or End of Support phase.
Important things in Retire Mode:
New Competitors and Evolving Needs: Over time, new competitors enter the market, and user needs evolve. The product may no longer meet current market expectations, or new technologies may make it obsolete.
End of Updates and Patches: Once a product reaches the End of Support, it will no longer receive updates, bug fixes, or security patches.
User Feedback: At this stage, companies may gather feedback to understand why users are moving away from the product, what new features they want, and if there is potential to develop a new version.
Newer Version: The Upgrade and Evolution
As technology evolves and user needs change, software products often have to undergo upgrades or new versions. This phase involves releasing new versions of the product with additional features, enhancements, or performance improvements.
Important things in Newer Version:
Regular Updates: Software products are often updated regularly to stay competitive and meet the latest user needs.
Versioning: A software product usually follows a specific versioning system to help track its progress through different releases.
For example: consider google chrome's versioning system:
Version: 133.0.6943.54
133: Major Version – Indicates a significant release with new features or improvements that may involve changes to the software's core functionality.
0: Minor Version – Reflects smaller improvements, enhancements, or new features that don't drastically change the product's core functionality.
6943: Build Number – This is the internal identifier for the specific build of the product. It often helps track the specific development iteration or bug-fix release.
54: Patch Number – Indicates bug fixes, security patches, and small updates to improve the stability and security of the software.
How Versioning Works in Software?
Patch Updates: When there are bug fixes, minor performance improvements, or security vulnerabilities addressed, the build number and patch number are usually updated.
Minor Features: If there are new features or enhancements, the minor version might be bumped up.
Major Changes: If there is a significant change to the product’s functionality or a major update, the major version is updated. This also means that the older or previous major version of the product in the market will gradually be phased out and eventually reach its End-of-Support phase. For example, if Chrome releases 133.0.6943.55 (a minor update) or 133.1.6943.0 (a new set of features), users can easily track the changes by looking at the updated version numbers.
Importance of upgrade/update
To keep the product safe from security risks and prevent attacks that could harm its performance, it's important to stay updated. This means updating the patch or build number often, as security fixes are released quickly.