Re: Incorporating 9X into Ada courses

[ddciiny!jls@uunet.uu.net (Jonathan Schilling)]

In article <SRCTRAN.93Apr29095738@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory
 Aharonian) writes:
>
>    The reason that Ada compilers cost more is simply because the Ada
>compiler vendors have a captive market and can charge more simply because
>there is no competition for them.  The Ada Mandate is a gross market
>distortion that allows these inflated prices to continue.  Remove the
>Mandate and two things will happen: first, the Ada vendors will have to
>drastically lower their prices to be competitive with the C/C++ vendors.
>Second, since the vendors are used to competition within the defense
>world, between competition with C/C++ vendors and loss of sales to DoD
>projects now using C/C++, most of the vendors will go out of the Ada
>business.
>
>    The vendors have used every excuse in the book to explain away the
>fact why their prices are so high compared to industry standards, except
>for the reason that neither Ada nor their compilers are competitive.
>Just look how people are spending their own money.

Not to get into the general argument about whether the existence of the
Ada market as a whole is due to lack of competition, it must be noted
that *within* the Ada market, there is definitely competition.  There are
a number of different Ada vendors, and for any given host[/target], there
are usually three or more Ada compiler products to choose from.  Having
worked for Ada compiler vendors for over eight years, I can attest that
this business is *very* competitive, and that if you don't put out a
competitive product, you suffer.        

As for prices *within* the Ada market, there are several different pricing
strategies around.  It is not always the lowest-cost vendors that do the
best; whether this is a because Ada customers are more concerned with
quality than cost, or this is a consequence of the funding and procurement
practices in the Ada world, I'm not sure.

-- 
Jonathan Schilling
DDC-I, Inc.
uunet!ddciiny!jls