Re: Ada 95 for an ARM-based bare board?

[dewar@gnat.com (Robert Dewar)]

"SteveD" <nospam_steved94@attbi.com> wrote in message news:<LmX89.23476$aA.7706@sccrnsc02>...
 
> As I recall it was Tom Griest (not sure I have the 
> spelling right) that first made a Win32 port of GNAT 
> available.  Before it was available from ACT.
 
Yes that's right. And of course there may be someone who
is sure that the conditions are different, or that the
price was wrong, or that the product was premature, and
that everything is different now. Perhaps. Just because
Ada Core does not market something does not necessarily
mean it can't be marketed.

After all, no doubt one can make money selling halloween
costumes, but Ada Core Technologies is not in that business
last time I looked :-) And more seriously, we can't even expect to
cover all viable aspects of the commercial Ada
market. Successful companies specialize in what they are
good at. We consider our strength to be in providing high
level support for mission critical projects, since that's where we see
the major business opportunity. That's a totally different business
from going after a mass market. Even if the mass market is viable,
going after such a market is not something that fits our expertise and
business model.

This kind of specialization is definitely a key to success.
2001-2002 was a difficult period for many (almost all?) high tech
companies, but Ada Core Technologies has prospered during that period.
We have experienced steady growth for this period in both companies
(Ada Core Technologies and ACT/Europe) and we have a dedicated group
of people, who may not be getting rich with stock options,
but they are paid respectable and steady salaries :-)

I have run into a few people who are puzzled by our financial model,
because they don't see how the founders
expect to make big money out of the company. It's a sad
sign of the times that people assume this is the motive
for founding a company, and the founders, who are not
getting Enron-style-rich, but are also paid respectable and steady
salaries are quite content with the situation thank you :-)

Once again, the nice thing about Free Software is that we
don't lock up the market by stopping anyone else from using
or exploiting our technology. If someone thinks they can be
successful selling an inexpensive ARM port of GNAT to the
mass market, then I say go for it!

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies