All I will say is, if you have never been part of an engineering team tasked with designing a new product, it is difficult to understand the intricacies, of making everthing work together.

I have never been involved with development efforts using php, mysql, javascript, flash, linux, apache, red5, video streaming, etc., so I can't speak in precise terms regarding development of products using those technologies. I've spent much of my career developing oil well logging instrumentation for Formation see more Evaluation, in Measuement While Drilling (MWD) applications. For those of you that don't know what I just said, MWD electronics must operate in an environment that includes 400° F ambient temperatures, and constant vibration levels of 25G's, and external pressures of 20,000 PSI. The instrumentation gets quite sophisticated because all data processing is done downhole, and the information is, transmitted to the surface in almost real time. No electronic equipment used by the military or by NASA in space vehicles would ever survive such an environment, in fact NASA and DOD frequently partner will oilfield services companies to develop ruggedized electronics.

Enough background. Developing these sort of products is a very difficult task. There are predetermined recipes for success. You can always use parts of what worked in the past, but you always need to develop new electronic sub-assemblies, write new firmware for embedded controllers, or Digital Signal Processors. The individual members of the engineering team work on their assigned tasks and do whatever environmental testing that needs done. Often hardware that does not make it through environmental testing will need reworking until it does. Did I mention that this sort of instrumentation also has to sit out in 40 below zero weather in places like Prudhoe Bay Alaska? (This is where you find out if the pressure seals work between the temperature ranges of -40° F and +400° F.)

Then come the fun part. We take all the hardware sub-assemblies designed by different engineers, and firmware written by the software guys and hook it all up together. We call it system integration. In 30 years, I have never, ever, not once, seen system integration work the way we wanted it to on the first try. Things interact in ways we did not anticipate. We make mistakes that need fixing. The firmware doesn't play with the hardware correctly. The firmware guys say the hardware is the problem. The hardware guys say the firmware is the problem. We do thing over until we get them right. Management wants the product yesterday. The engineers need more time. Eventually, we all work out the glitches, and send the stuff to manufacturing for a 'Pilot' build. Manufacturing build 10 complete instruments at a cost 3 million dollars. Then, the QC guys get their hands on the stuff and test all 10 instruments. OOPS... 9 instruments work great, but one is decidedly not working according to design specifications. Engineering department takes a closer look at the wayward instrument and finds that accumulated manufacturing tolerances of a number of electronic components, are responsible for the problem. It's back to engineering to come up with a fix, then have manufacturing rework all of the instruments. Whoa! Wait a minute! Some of the electronic components we used, are not available in a more precise tolerance, so we'll have to use some components from a different vendor.... Damn! now we have to go through environmental testing again.

Yes, it's a long winded story. All I can say is that even though I became quite comfortable with this type of engineering development, I still cannot give precise answers as to how long the development cycle will take. I can give estimates based on what I know at a given point in time, but that may change as I learn of imperfections in the design. Projects that originally planned for 6 months, stretch out for a year. One year projects, stretch out for 2 years. It happens a lot... to everybody. Are the engineers aware of how long it is taking? Yes... they are painfully aware. Will pep talks from managers magically make the engineers think faster? No. Are the customer impatient? YES.