My Atari 2600 never got a firmware update. Not a single one. Neither did any of the game cartridges that came with it.
In the early days of software, ‘soft’ware was really just a different kind of hardware. It was built, packaged and shipped exactly once. If you shipped it with a bug, that bug would stay there.
‘Softer’ storage types (tapes, floppy disks, etc) and better distribution allowed software companies to release new versions more often. Many years between major versions became one or two years, but updates to a specific version were uncommon.
The internet shortened the cycle even further – turning one or two years to months for many software products, and allowing automatic updates of existing versions to fix bugs, patch security holes, and so on.
Seamless and fully-integrated update and application management technology, like the App Store for Mac, can bring the cycle down even futher – changing months to weeks between updates.
What happens when the cycle is even shorter? Then you get web products. Sites like WordPress.com or Amazon can push an updates to production servers multiple times per day.
How fast are you?
William Gill (Will) is an agile advocate, scrum enthusiast and web and mobile technology geek. He is the Product Owner for Nokia Maps, 
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