Re: Ada is not a failure.

[cis.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!linac!uchinews!att-out!cbn ewsl!willett@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (david.c.willett)]

>From article <23s4tl$9ni@news.aero.org>, by doner@aero.org (John Doner):

	{Stuff deleted}
> 
> Really?  Not so, usually.  Development costs are sunk costs.  You invested
> (i.e., gambled) your money and time up front.  Once the product is there, you
> want to make the most you can from it.  You want every dime you can get from
> it, and it makes no difference what it cost you to reach the point you are at
> now.  The real problem is vendors not understanding this, and behaving as
> though the marketplace "owed" them they money they spent.
> 
> A few years ago, Meridian came out with an Ada compiler and development syste
m
> for the Macintosh.  The price was in the thousands.  I laughed.  How could
> anyone be so totally oblivious of the realities of the marketplace into which
> they were selling?  Think C for the Mac, also an excellent development
> environment, was selling for under $100 in the education market and not much
> more retail.  The way to make money in the personal computer market was to
> price it low and sell tens of thousands of copies.  Ask Borland or Symantec.
> Eventually, Meridian evidently realized this and their prices came down.  But
> they may have been too late.
> 
> John Doner

I can't agree with you here John, development costs are not "sunk".  Every
R&D venture I've ever been associated with or heard of, has a "break-even"
point, which is calculated up front.  The development team, or champion, or
manager (it varies with company) *MUST* break even by a particular date or
have their head(s) handed to them by the backers (e.g. the Board of
Directors).  

I do agree that Meridian's original pricing for the Mac system indicates 
that their calculation of its "break-even" point was questionable :^).
One thing that I haven't heard mentioned is the market forecasts the 
vendors used for their pricing.  If they depended on DoD contractors
converting to COTS, their forecasts aren't so wild.  Typically, that
kind of information is tightly held, so I don't think we'll ever know
what drove the pricing.

-- 
Dave Willett          AT&T Federal Systems Advanced Technologies
If you want to know --- ASK!  -- Linda Ellerbee