Vaporware - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Vaporware is a term in the computer industry that describes a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is never actually released nor officially canceled. Vaporware is also a term sometimes used to describe events that are announced or predicted, never officially cancelled, but never intended to happen. The term also generally applies to a product that is announced months or years before its release, and for which public development details are lacking. The word has been applied to a growing range of products including consumer, automobiles, and some stock trading practices. At times, vendors are criticized for intentionally producing vaporware in order to keep customers from switching to competitive products that offer more features.

Publications widely accuse developers of announcing products early intentionally to gain advantage over others. Network World

Network World

Network World is a weekly IT publication that provides news and information to network executives. The company is headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts, United States....

magazine called vaporware an "epidemic" in 1989, and blamed the press for not investigating whether developers' claims were true. Seven major companies issued a report in 1990 saying they felt vaporware had hurt the industry's credibility. The United States accused several companies of announcing vaporware early in violation of antitrust laws

Competition law

Competition law, known in the United States as antitrust law, is law that promotes or maintains market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies....

, but few have been found guilty. InfoWorld magazine wrote that the word is overused, and places an unfair stigma on developers.

"Vaporware" was coined by a Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

engineer in 1982 to describe the company's Xenix

Xenix

Xenix is a version of the Unix operating system, licensed to Microsoft from AT&T in the late 1970s. The Santa Cruz Operation later acquired exclusive rights to the software, and eventually superseded it with SCO UNIX ....

operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

, and first published by computer expert Esther Dyson

Esther Dyson

Esther Dyson is a former journalist and Wall Street technology analyst who is a leading angel investor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and commentator focused on breakthrough innovation in healthcare, government transparency, digital technology, biotechnology, and space...

in 1983. It became popular among writers in the industry as a way to describe products they felt took too long to be released. InfoWorld

InfoWorld

InfoWorld is an information technology online media and events business operating under the umbrella of InfoWorld Media Group, a division of IDG...

magazine editor Stewart Alsop

Stewart Alsop II

Stewart Johonnot Oliver Alsop is a partner in Alsop Louie Partners, a venture capital firm. He was a general partner with New Enterprise Associates in Menlo Park, California...

helped popularize it by lampooning Bill Gates

Bill Gates

William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...

with a Golden Vaporware award for the late release of his company's first version of Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

in 1985. Vaporware first implied intentional fraud when it was applied to the Ovation office suite

Office suite

In computing, an office suite, sometimes called an office software suite or productivity suite is a collection of programs intended to be used by knowledge workers...

in 1983; the suite's demonstration was well-received by the press, but was later revealed to have never existed.

Etymology

The first reported use of the word "vaporware" was in 1982 by an engineer at the computer software company Microsoft

Microsoft

. Ann Winblad

Ann Winblad

Ann L. Winblad is a partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.-Early years:Ann L. Winblad was born on November 1, 1950 in Red Wing, Minnesota...

, who was president of Open Systems Accounting Software

Open Systems Accounting Software

OPEN SYSTEMS Accounting Software is a business accounting software package for small- to medium-sized businesses using the Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X operating systems. First sold in 1976, it has been actively developed and sold since then by Open Systems, Inc. of Shakopee, MN.OSAS is...

, wanted to know if Microsoft planned to stop developing its Xenix

Xenix

operating system

Operating system

. Some of Open System's products depended on it. She went to Microsoft's offices, and asked two software engineers there, John Ulett and Mark Ursino, who confirmed that development of Xenix had stopped. "One of them told me, 'Basically, it's vaporware'," she later said. Winblad compared the word to the idea of "selling smoke", implying Microsoft was selling a product it would soon not support.
The word was told by Winblad to influential computer expert Esther Dyson

Esther Dyson

, and Dyson published it for the first time in her monthly printed newsletter RELease 1.0. In an article titled "Vaporware" in the November 1983 issue of RELease 1.0, Dyson defined the word as "good ideas incompletely implemented". She described three software products shown at the Computer Dealer's Exhibition

COMDEX

COMDEX was a computer expo held in Las Vegas, Nevada, each November from 1979 to 2003. It was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world, usually second only to the German CeBIT, and by many accounts one of the largest trade shows in any industry sector...

in Las Vegas that year that were being advertised bombastically. In her words, demonstrations of the "purported revolutions, breakthroughs and new generations" shown at the exhibition did not meet those claims.

After Dyson's article was published, the word became popular among writers in the then small personal computer

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

software industry as a way to describe products they felt took too long to be released after their first announcement. InfoWorld

InfoWorld

InfoWorld is an information technology online media and events business operating under the umbrella of InfoWorld Media Group, a division of IDG...

magazine editor Stewart Alsop

Stewart Alsop II

Stewart Johonnot Oliver Alsop is a partner in Alsop Louie Partners, a venture capital firm. He was a general partner with New Enterprise Associates in Menlo Park, California...

helped popularize its use in this way by lampooning Bill Gates

Bill Gates

, then CEO of Microsoft, with a Golden Vaporware award for the 18-month late release of Microsoft's first version of Windows in 1985. Alsop presented it to Gates at a celebration for the release while the song "The Impossible Dream

The Impossible Dream (The Quest)

"The Impossible Dream " is a popular song composed by Mitch Leigh, with lyrics written by Joe Darion. It was written for the 1965 musical Man of La Mancha...

" played in the background.

"Vaporware" took another meaning when it was used to describe a product that did not exist. A new company named Ovation Technologies announced their office suite

Office suite

In computing, an office suite, sometimes called an office software suite or productivity suite is a collection of programs intended to be used by knowledge workers...

Ovation in 1983. The company invested in an advertising campaign that promoted Ovation as a "great innovation", and showed a demonstration of the program at computer trade shows. The demonstration was well received by writers in the press, featured in a cover story for an industry magazine, and reportedly created anticipation among potential customers. It was later revealed by executives that Ovation never existed. The fake demonstration was created in an attempt by the company to raise money to finish their product, but they could not. This was the first time the word "vaporware" was used to imply intentional fraud, and is "widely considered the mother of all vaporware," according to Laurie Flynn of The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

.

"Vaporware", sometimes synonymous with "vaportalk" in the 1980s, has no single definition. It is generally used to describe a hardware or software product that has been announced by its developer, but that has not yet been released. Use of the term has gradually become more inclusive in the last three decades. Newsweek

Newsweek

Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

magazine's Allan Sloan described the manipulation of stocks by Yahoo!

Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...

and Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

as "financial vaporware" in 1997. Popular Science

Popular Science

Popular Science is an American monthly magazine founded in 1872 carrying articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. Popular Science has won over 58 awards, including the ASME awards for its journalistic excellence in both 2003 and 2004...

magazine uses a scale ranging from "vaporware" to "bet on it" to describe release dates of new consumer electronics. Car manufacturer General Motors

General Motors

General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

' plans to develop and sell an electric car were called vaporware by an advocacy group in 2008.

Late release

A product missing its announced release date, and the labeling of it as vaporware by the press, can be caused by its development taking longer than planned. Most software products are not released on time, according to researchers who studied the causes and effects of vaporware in 2001. Software development

Software development

Software development is the development of a software product...

is a complex process, and developers are often uncertain how long it will take to complete any given project. Fixing errors in software, for example, can make up a significant portion of its development time, and developers are motivated not to release software with errors because it could damage their reputation with customers. Last-minute design changes are also common. In 1986, the American National Standards Institute

American National Standards Institute

The American National Standards Institute is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organization also coordinates U.S. standards with international...

adopted SQL

SQL

SQL is a programming language designed for managing data in relational database management systems ....

as the standard database manipulation language. Software company Ashton-Tate

Ashton-Tate

Ashton-Tate was a US based software company best known for developing the popular dBASE database application. Ashton-Tate grew from a small garage-based company to become a multinational corporation...

was ready to release their dBase IV database manipulation program, but pushed the release date back to add support for SQL. They felt their product would not be competitive without it. On to the popular use of the word "vaporware" by writers in the mid-1980s, InfoWorld magazine editor James Fawcette wrote that its negative association was unfair to developers because of situations like these.

Vaporware also includes announced products that are never released because of financial problems, or because the industry changes during its development. When 3D Realms

3D Realms

3D Realms is a current video game publisher and former video game developer based in Garland, Texas, United States, established in 1987...

first announced their video game Duke Nukem Forever

Duke Nukem Forever

Duke Nukem Forever is a 2011 first-person shooter video game for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 developed by 3D Realms and Triptych Games and finished by Gearbox Software and Piranha Games...

in 1997, it was early in its development. The company's previous game released in 1996, Duke Nukem 3D

Duke Nukem 3D

Duke Nukem 3D is a first-person shooter computer game developed by 3D Realms and published by GT Interactive Software. The full version was released for the PC . It is a sequel to the platform games Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II published by Apogee...

, was a critical and financial success, and customer anticipation for its sequel was high. As personal computer hardware speeds improved at a rapid pace in the late 1990s, it created an "arms race" between companies in the video game industry, according to Wired News

Wired News

Wired News is an online technology news website, formerly known as HotWired, that split off from Wired magazine when the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast Publishing in the 1990s. Wired News was owned by Lycos not long after the split, until Condé Nast purchased Wired News on July 11, 2006...

. 3D Realms repeatedly moved the release date forward over the next 12 years to add new, more advanced features. By the time 3D Realms went out of business in 2009 with the game unreleased, Duke Nukem Forever had become synonymous with the word "vaporware" among industry writers. The game was revived and released in 2011.

Early announcement

Announcing products early—months or years before their release date, also called "preannouncing", has been an effective way by some developers to make their products successful. It can be seen as a legitimate part of their marketing strategy, but is generally not popular with industry press. The first company to release a product in a given market often gains an advantage. It can set the standard for similar future products, attract a large number of customers, and establish its brand before competitor's products are released. Public relations firm Coakley-Heagerty used an early announcement in 1984 to build interest among potential customers. Their client was a former employee of Atari

Atari

Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...

who wanted to market his new arcade game

Arcade game

An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...

, but his contract with Atari prohibited it until a later date. The firm created an advertising campaign—including brochures and a shopping-mall appearance—around a large ambiguous box covered in brown paper to "stall for time" until the game could be announced.

Early announcements do not send signals only to customers and the media. They are noticed by providers of support products, regulatory agencies, financial analysts, investors, and other parties. For example, an early announcement can relay information to vendors, letting them know to prepare marketing and shelf space. It can signal third-party developers to begin work on their own products, and it can be used to persuade a company's investors that they are actively developing new, profitable ideas. When IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

announced its Professional Workstation computer in 1986, they noted the lack of third-party programs written for it at the time, signaling those developers to start preparing. Microsoft usually announces information about its operating systems early because third-party developers are dependent on that information to develop their own products.

A developer can strategically announce a product that is in the early stages of development, or before development begins, to gain competitive advantage over other developers. In addition to the "vaporware" label, this is also called "ambush marketing", and "fear, uncertainty and doubt

Fear, uncertainty and doubt

Fear, uncertainty and doubt, frequently abbreviated as FUD, is a tactic used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics and propaganda....

" (FUD) by the press. If the announcing developer is a large company, this may be done to influence smaller companies to stop development of similar products. The smaller company might decide their product will not be able to compete, and that it is not worth the development costs. It can also be done in response to a competitor's already released product. The goal is to make potential customers believe a second, better product will be released soon. The customer might reconsider buying from the competitor, and wait. In 1994, as customer anticipation increased for Microsoft's new version of Windows (codenamed "Chicago

Windows 95

Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...

"), Apple announced a set of upgrades to its own System 7

System 7

System 7 is the name of a Macintosh operating system introduced in 1991.System 7 may also refer to:* System 7 , a British dance/ambient band* System 7 , 1991 album* IBM System/7, a 1970s computer system...

operating system that were not due to be released until two years later. The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

wrote that Apple did this to "blunt Chicago's momentum".
Industry publications widely accused companies of using early announcements intentionally to gain competitive advantage over others. In his 1989 Network World article, Joe Mohen

Joe Mohen

Joseph T. Mohen, better known as Joe Mohen, was the CEO and co-founder of election.com, which ran the Arizona Democratic Primary in March 2000, the world’s first legally binding election conducted on the Internet, according to the company...

wrote the practice had become a "vaporware epidemic", and blamed the press for not investigating claims by developers. "If the pharmaceutical industry were this careless, I could announce a cure for cancer today — to a believing press." In 1985, Stewart Alsop began publishing his influential monthly Vaporlist, a list of companies he felt announced their products too early, hoping to dissuade them from the practice. Wired

Wired (magazine)

Wired is a full-color monthly American magazine and on-line periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics...

Magazine began publishing a similar list in 1997. Seven major software developers—including Ashton-Tate, Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...

and Sybase

Sybase

Sybase, an SAP company, is an enterprise software and services company offering software to manage, analyze, and mobilize information, using relational databases, analytics and data warehousing solutions and mobile applications development platforms....

—formed a council in 1990, and issued a report condemning the "vacuous product announcement dubbed vaporware and other misrepresentations of product availability" because they felt it had hurt the industry's credibility.

Antitrust allegations

Announcing a product that does not exist to gain a competitive advantage is illegal via Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act

Sherman Antitrust Act

The Sherman Antitrust Act requires the United States federal government to investigate and pursue trusts, companies, and organizations suspected of violating the Act. It was the first Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust litigation by...

of 1890, but few hardware or software developers have been found guilty of it. The section requires proof that the announcement is both provably false, and has actual or likely market impact.
False or misleading announcements designed to influence stock prices are illegal under United States securities fraud

Securities fraud

Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a practice that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in losses, in violation of the securities laws....

laws. The complex and changing nature of the computer industry, marketing techniques, and lack of precedence for these laws applied to the industry can mean developers are not aware their actions are illegal. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued a statement in 1984 with the goal of reminding companies that securities fraud also applies to "statements that can reasonably be expected to reach investors and the trading markets".

Several companies have been accused in court of using knowingly false announcements to gain market advantage. In 1969, The United States Justice Department accused IBM of doing this in the case United States v. IBM. After IBM's competitor Control Data Corporation (CDC) released their computer, IBM announced they planned to sell a more advanced computer soon—its System/360 Model 91. The announcement resulted in a significant reduction in sales of CDC's product. The Justice Department accused IBM of doing this intentionally because the System/360 Model 91 was not released until three years later. The practice was not called "vaporware" at the time, but publications have since used the word to refer specifically to it. Similar cases have been filed against Kodak

Eastman Kodak

Eastman Kodak Company is a multinational imaging and photographic equipment, materials and services company headquarted in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded by George Eastman in 1892....

film company, AT&T

AT&T

AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...

, and Xerox

Xerox

Xerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...

.

US District Judge Stanley Sporkin

Stanley Sporkin

Stanley Sporkin is a former judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He was nominated to the seat vacated by Judge June Lazenby Green on April 5, 1985 by President Ronald Reagan, and was confirmed by the Senate on December 16; he received his commission the next day...

was a vocal opponent of the practice during his review of the settlement resulting from United States v. Microsoft

United States v. Microsoft

United States v. Microsoft was a set of civil actions filed against Microsoft Corporation pursuant to the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 Section 1 and 2 on May 8, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states. Joel I. Klein was the lead prosecutor...

in 1994. "Vaporware is a practice that is deceitful on its face and everybody in the business community knows it," said Sporkin. One of the accusations made during the trial was that Microsoft has illegally used early announcements. The review began when three anonymous companies protested the settlement, claiming the government did not thoroughly investigate Microsoft's use of the practice. Specifically, they claimed Microsoft announced its Quick Basic 3 program to slow sales of its competitor Borland

Borland

Borland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:...

's recently released Turbo Basic program. The review was dismissed for lack of explicit proof.

Hardware

Action Gamemaster
Action Gamemaster
The Action Gamemaster was a vaporware product that would have been produced by Active Enterprises, a small manufacturer of unlicensed video games....

– a handheld device
Handheld device
A mobile device is a small, hand-held computing device, typically having a display screen with touch input and/or a miniature keyboard and less than . Early pocket sized ones were joined in the late 2000s by larger but otherwise similar tablet computers...

designed by Active Enterprises
Active Enterprises
Active Enterprises Ltd. is a defunct American video game developer headquartered in Miami, Florida that was active in the early 1990s. Their best known game, and the only title officially released by the company, was the infamous Action 52 multicart for the NES and Sega Genesis video game...
Phantom – a console gaming system developed by Infinium Labs. It received the first place in "Vaporwares 2004" in Wired News
Wired News
Wired News is an online technology news website, formerly known as HotWired, that split off from Wired magazine when the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast Publishing in the 1990s. Wired News was owned by Lycos not long after the split, until Condé Nast purchased Wired News on July 11, 2006...

.

Video games

Starcraft: Ghost
StarCraft: Ghost
StarCraft: Ghost is a military science fiction stealth-action video game under suspended development by Blizzard Entertainment. Part of Blizzard's StarCraft series, the game was announced in 2002 and was to be developed by Nihilistic Software for the Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 video...

– announced in 2002, after numerous production issues caused Blizzard to announce the game on an "indefinite hold" in March 2006. Sources such as IGN and GameSpot show the game as canceled.
I Am Alive - Originally announced in 2007, the game eventually was never heard of again even though Ubisoft stated that the release of the game would be in 2008. Three years later, however, Ubisoft once again released another trailer that promises a Winter 2011 release.
Elite 4
Elite 4
Elite 4 is a video game proposed by Frontier Developments, specifically by David Braben.-Third sequel:...

– Started in 2000 only to be abandoned, "nearly finished" in 2008, and will resume development "after The Outsider
The Outsider (video game)
The Outsider is a "techno thriller" video game for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 that will feature storylines that change based on the player's actions. It is currently under development by David Braben's Frontier Developments. The release date has not officially been...

has been completed" - which is also vaporware and has been abandoned.
Project BC
Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Final Fantasy Versus XIII
is an upcoming action role-playing game published by Square Enix for the PlayStation 3 and currently being developed by the company's 1st Production Department. Alongside Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII-2, and Final Fantasy Type-0, the game is a part of the Fabula Nova Crystallis Final...

- Unveiled by Square Enix at E3 2006, Tetsuya Nomura has said the game is unlikely to be released in 2011 and that the earliest possible reveal of information about the game would be at E3 2011. However, the game was not present at the show.
Connie Talbot: Over The Rainbow - announced in August 2008, and was scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2009, but copyright issues with the songs to be used in the game hampered its release.
Project Milo was announced at E3 09 but conflicting reports from Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

and the developer Lionhead
Lionhead
Lionhead may refer to* Lionhead Studios, a computer game development company* Lionhead , a variety of goldfish* a breed of domestic rabbits: see List of rabbit breeds* the head of a lion...

have raised speculation over if it was a real game.
Anarchy Online
Anarchy Online
Anarchy Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game published and developed by Funcom. Released in the summer of 2001, the game was first in the genre to include a science-fiction setting, dynamic quests, free trials, and in-game advertising. The most ground breaking feature in...

s new graphics rendering engine, announced in June 2007 with a planned release date of mid 2008 which was later pushed back to end of 2008. On May 22, 2009 it was announced that work on the OGRE
OGRE
OGRE is a scene-oriented, flexible 3D rendering engine written in C++ designed to make it easier and intuitive for developers to produce applications utilizing hardware-accelerated 3D graphics...

engine had ceased and work on converting Anarchy Online to use the Dreamworld engine had begun, with a predicted release date of sometime in 2009. The engine was then scheduled to enter a testing phase by the end of Q2 2011 , a date which passed without mention. The engine is still unreleased as of 2011. Although no concrete release date has been specified by the developers, renderings from an emulated engine environment and videos of the work in progress are periodically being released. The most recent official video was a 17 second video released in December 2009 , although cell phone footage from June 2011 has been posted by a third party.
Lost Colony - A dynamic, episodic MMOFPS by Red Planet, LLC., announced in 2006, with gameplay similar to SOE
Sony Online Entertainment
Sony Online Entertainment is a game development and game publishing division of Sony that is best known for creating massively multiplayer online games, including EverQuest, EverQuest II, The Matrix Online, PlanetSide, Star Wars Galaxies, Free Realms, and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, DC Universe...

's PlanetSide
PlanetSide
PlanetSide is a massively-multiplayer online first-person-shooter computer game published by Sony Online Entertainment and released on May 20, 2003....

in which 3 races are fighting for control over a persistent world. Lost Colony was first hyped as "The Next PlanetSide" with rough, extremely buggy "demos" being supplied to those that pre-paid $20 for access to the beta program which only released clients that were pre-alphas quality. Many were anticipating the move from PlanetSide to Lost Colony to be a game changer for PlanetSide subscribers. This never happened as the pre-alpha releases stopped in mid-2007 and official updates ceased on the official forums. Players were offered the choice to have their funds returned, however, the timeline did not exist very long for the program to reach all of the subscribers. The website for the game and Red Planet, LLC. are no longer available for service.
Microsoft Train Simulator 2
Microsoft Train Simulator 2
Microsoft Train Simulator 2 was a train simulator that was being developed by Microsoft Game Studios until being postponed indefinitely due to the closure of ACES Studios....

, announced in 2003 but canceled in 2004, it was again announced in 2007. It will be the last time because the game was later cancelled in 2009 after the studio closed ACES
2 Days to Vegas
2 Days to Vegas
2 Days to Vegas is an upcoming third-person action-adventure game developed by Steel Monkeys. The game is set in several major cities across the United States and takes place during a 48 hour period. 2 Days to Vegas is set to release for the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 platforms...
Chrome 2
The Getaway (PlayStation 3)
Eight Days
Eight Days
Eight Days is an action game that was being developed by SCE London Studio for the PlayStation 3. The game was reported to have been cancelled on 4 June 2008, however it was later revealed in October 2009 that the game was merely on hold...
Warhound
They
They (video game)
They is a first-person shooter. It was under development by Metropolis Software, but when CD Projekt purchased them development was halted, in order to focus on The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings...
Shenmue III - The Shenmue series were planned for 16 chapters, 6 of which were presented in Shenmue I and Shenmue II, the latter of which has ended with a cliffhanger with familiar "to be continued.." at the very end. Since then a continuation was mentioned numerous times and even Yu Suzuki (of Sega) himself mentioned that Sega might let him finish the game but proper fundings are an issue. However according to a 2009 article in a Japanese magazine Famitsu
Famitsu
is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Enterbrain, Inc. and Tokuma. Currently, there are five Famitsū magazines: Shūkan Famitsū, Famitsū PS3 + PSP, Famitsū Xbox 360, Famitsū Wii+DS, and Famitsū Wave DVD...

Shenmue 3 tops as the second most wanted video-game sequel.

Software

Game Runner - A Sinclair Spectrum emulator that was intended to run on the Commodore 64. It was advertised for a single month before being withdrawn from promotion.
Ovation – An integrated software
Integrated software
Integrated software is software for personal computers that combines the most commonly used functions of many productivity software programs into one application....

package for DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...

that was announced by Ovation Technologies in 1983. Written about in many computer magazines at the time, Ovation was never released.
Textmate 2.0
TextMate
TextMate is a general-purpose GUI text editor for Mac OS X created by Allan Odgaard. Popular with programmers, some notable features include declarative customizations, tabs for open documents, recordable macros, folding sections and snippets, shell integration, and an extensible bundle...

- a popular text editor for the Macintosh by Macromates. Development stalled in 2006, and version 2.0 has yet to be released as of 2011.

Music

Smile
Smile (The Beach Boys album)
Smile is a previously unreleased album by The Beach Boys recorded throughout 1966 and 1967. The project was intended by its creator Brian Wilson as the follow-up to Pet Sounds, but was never completed in its original form...

, an album by The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...

, has been delayed for almost 45 years until it was announced with a final release date in November 2011 (with the official release name being The Smile Sessions).
- A Brian Wilson
  Brian Wilson
  Brian Douglas Wilson is an American musician, best known as the leader and chief songwriter of the group The Beach Boys. Within the band, Wilson played bass and keyboards, also providing part-time lead vocals and, more often, backing vocals, harmonizing in falsetto with the group...
  
  only version (along with various studio musicians) of Smile
  Smile (Brian Wilson album)
  Smile, sometimes typeset with the idiosyncratic partial capitalization SMiLE, or referred to as Brian Wilson Presents Smile is a solo album by Brian Wilson, with lyrics by Van Dyke Parks released on September 28, 2004 on CD and two-disc vinyl LP...
  
  was released on September 28, 2004.

Surfaced vaporware

Products which once were considered to be vaporware which eventually surfaced after a prolonged time:

3G
3G
3G or 3rd generation mobile telecommunications is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunication services fulfilling the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 specifications by the International Telecommunication Union...
Bluetooth
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks with high levels of security...
Daikatana
Daikatana
John Romero's Daikatana, or simply Daikatana, is a first-person shooter computer game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive. Released on May 23, 2000 for Windows, it was led by John Romero. The game is known as one of the major commercial failures of the computer game industry....
Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...

(then, "Windows Code Name 'Longhorn'")
Windows 2000
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

, the long-awaited "next generation Mac OS" that began life as Copland
Copland (operating system)
Copland was a project at Apple Computer to create an updated version of the Macintosh operating system. It was to have introduced protected memory, preemptive multitasking and a number of new underlying operating system features, yet still be compatible with existing Mac software...
Warcraft III
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is a real time strategy computer game released by Blizzard Entertainment on July 3, 2002 . It is the second sequel to Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, and it is the third game set in the Warcraft Universe...
Prey
Prey (video game)
Prey is a first-person shooter video game developed by Human Head Studios , and published by 2K Games. The Xbox 360 version was ported by Venom Games. The game was initially released in North America and Europe on 11 July 2006...

, was announced in 1995 and took 11 years to be released.
Mother 3
EarthBound 64
EarthBound 64, officially known as Mother 3 , is a cancelled role-playing video game that was in development by Nintendo and HAL Laboratory for the Nintendo 64DD. It was later transferred to the Nintendo 64 after the Nintendo 64DD proved to be unsuccessful. The game adopted several subtitles in...

was originally announced in 1996 for the Nintendo 64DD
Nintendo 64DD
The is a peripheral for the Nintendo 64 game console. It plugged into the N64 through the EXTension Port on the Nintendo 64's underside, and allowed the N64 to use proprietary 64 MB magneto-optical discs for expanded data storage...

and was cancelled following numerous release date pushbacks and a shift to the Nintendo 64
Nintendo 64
The , often referred to as N64, was Nintendo′s third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil...

alone. The project was eventually announced to have been revived
Mother 3
Mother 3 is a role-playing video game developed by Nintendo, Brownie Brown and HAL Laboratory, and published for the Game Boy Advance handheld game console. It has only been released in Japan, alongside a limited supply bundle. It is the third video game in the Mother series, following EarthBound...

for the Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Advance
The is a 32-bit handheld video game console developed, manufactured, and marketed by Nintendo. It is the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001; in North America on June 11, 2001; in Australia and Europe on June 22, 2001; and in the People's Republic of China...

in advertisements for Mother 1+2 in 2003, and was released on April 20, 2006.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl is a first-person shooter video game by the Ukrainian developer GSC Game World, published in 2007.It features an alternate reality theme, where a second nuclear disaster occurs at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Zone in the near future and causes...

– Originally announced in 2001, the game experienced numerous delays. Beta builds of the final product have been distributed to numerous game review sites. On March 3, 2007, THQ announced that the game had gone gold and was released on March 20, 2007, though it was leaked three days earlier.
Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 is a free-to-play team-based first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed by Valve Corporation. A sequel to the original mod Team Fortress based on the Quake engine, it was first released as part of the video game compilation The Orange Box on October 10, 2007 for Windows...

was announced in 1999 and took 8 years to be released. The North American release took place on October 9, 2007.
Darkfall Online
Darkfall
Darkfall is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Aventurine SA that combines real-time action and strategy in a fantasy setting. The game features unrestricted PvP, full looting, a large, dynamic game world, and a player-skill dependent combat system free of the class and...

was announced on August 29, 2001, and was released in 2009.
Duke Nukem Forever
Duke Nukem Forever
Duke Nukem Forever is a 2011 first-person shooter video game for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 developed by 3D Realms and Triptych Games and finished by Gearbox Software and Piranha Games...

was announced on April 28, 1997 and went on to be a six-time winner of Wired's Vaporware Award and a winner of their Lifetime Vaporware Achievement. On September 3, 2010, it was officially announced to be released sometime in 2011. Due to be released 3 May 2011, it was further delayed to June 14. Demo of the game had been released on June 3, 2011 for those who pre-ordered it or purchased Borderlands
Borderlands (video game)
Borderlands is a science fiction based first-person shooter with RPG elements that was developed by Gearbox Software for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It was first revealed in the September 2007 issue of Game Informer magazine...

Game of the Year Edition. The demo was released on Steam, Xbox360 and PS3. The game eventually took 14 years, 1 month and 17 days to be released (using release date in North America).

Some examples of non-software vaporware that eventually surfaced are:

Chinese Democracy
Chinese Democracy
Chinese Democracy is the sixth studio album by American hard rock band Guns N' Roses, released in November 2008 on Geffen Records. It is the band's first studio album since "The Spaghetti Incident?" , released exactly 15 years before Chinese Democracy, and their first album of original studio...

, an extremely long coming album by hard rock group Guns N’ Roses, was finally released in 2008 after millions in recording costs and years of developing (recording had actually started in 1994). It has been certified platinum by the RIAA.

External links

Community Memory
Community Memory
Community Memory was the first public computerized bulletin board system. Established in 1973 in Berkeley, California, it used an SDS 940 timesharing system in San Francisco connected via a 110 baud link to a teleprinter at a record store in Berkeley to let users enter and retrieve messages...

postings from 1996 on the term's origins crediting Ann Winblad
Ann Winblad
Ann L. Winblad is a partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.-Early years:Ann L. Winblad was born on November 1, 1950 in Red Wing, Minnesota...

and Stewart Alsop.
RELease 1.0 November 1983 — a scanned copy of Esther Dyson's original article

Wired Magazine