The Scope of Office
Compatible 97 Testing: A Word About Bugs In Office Compatible
Products
It goes without saying that
bugs are undesirable, and Microsoft sincerely hopes that Office
Compatible 97 participants will take great care to create
products that meet the highest standards of quality. However,
Office Compatible testing is not designed to help vendors find
bugs in their products, and it definitely does not certify that
their products are bug free. On the contrary, even if bugs are
noted, the outcome of testing will depend solely on whether the
product has met the requirements discussed above, and unrelated
problems will not be listed in the test report.
However, there is one important
exception to this rule: if testing reveals that a product
impairs, degrades, or disrupts the normal operation of Office,
then it will fail Office Compatible 97 testing.
This policy reflects
Microsoft's belief that software bugs are an issue that is best
left between a product's developer and its customers, but as
noted, bugs that disrupt Office are clearly unacceptable in an
Office Compatible product. In any case, although Microsoft
strongly encourages participants to create high quality products,
the Office Compatible testing program does not certify that they
have actually done so, and vendors must not represent that it
does. On the contrary, testing merely verifies that a product's
basic user interface complies with the testing guidelines
described here.