I found this old article from Joel on Sofware: "Good software takes ten years, get used to it." I don't agree with the ten-year rule for adoption, (I'd say that a large percentage of the most commonly used software today did not have ten years of evolution under its wing before it was massively adopted, most notably web browsers, and a ton of web applications. As for the product to be mature, and not require more updates, ten years is probably right.

In any case, a great read.