Basic HTML version of Foils prepared April 7,1995

Foil 48 Anecdotes from HPCC Software Industry Arena

From Programming Paradigms A CRPC/MCNC Workshop -- April 10-13 1995. by Geoffrey C. Fox
Anecdotes from Thinking Machines (TMC) April 94 before the fall
  • "They would like to be a software company but you can only sell software if bundled with hardware"
  • Customers did not buy TMC hardware because TMC's software was too good and so one couldn't then get the federal grants to improve parallel systems software
Anecdote from Digital September 94:
  • Digital cannot make money on their scientific software package for alpha workstations
  • If Digital charged true cost of development and maintenance, users would make do with good (but not optimized or as complete) public domain software
  • So if workstation market not viable for simulation software, how can much smaller MPP market lead to viable business plans?

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