From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,53920231df6ca8f2,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1994-09-10 16:16:11 PST Path: nntp.gmd.de!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!gwu.edu!gwu.edu!not-for-mail From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Creating markets (long) Date: 10 Sep 1994 16:59:57 -0400 Organization: George Washington University Message-ID: <34t6od$9mo@felix.seas.gwu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.164.9.3 Date: 1994-09-10T16:59:57-04:00 List-Id: The recent posts from Jim Thomes, Jean Ichbiah, John Goodsen, and others from time to time, about Ada's "small market" characteristics have really started me thinking about whether, indeed, markets can be created. I am convinced that they not only _can_ be created, but it happens all the time. All one needs to do is look at the incredible variety of stuff available in any retail store, especially in foods and cosmetics, but also in other areas. Large food and cosmetic companies sink tremendous resources into inventing products, test-marketing them, running focus groups, developing ad campaigns, etc. If L'Oreal, Chanel, General Mills, and Kellogg's waited for hordes of customers to write the specs for their products, they would be out of business pretty fast. Inventing new products, then convincing folks to buy them who never knew they needed them, is indeed the very essence of retail-oriented business. This approach has been so successful that some industries are now using "counter-advertising" (if I can coin a phrase) techniques, to try to convince the public that these companies _didn't_ create a market. The two that come to mind are (1) the tobacco industry, which - under pressure for targeting young folks, minorities, and other "target" groups - has taken to advertising that "all" they are doing is providing a _choice_ of cigarette to people who have already _decided_ to smoke. Whether or not you believe this is a disingenuous ploy designed to get the FDA off their backs (I do...), it is certainly a change in advertising. They insist that thre is limitless demand for their products, which they had _nothing_ to do with creating. Yeah, right. (2) a certain brand of chewing gum (I forget which) that, recently, has advertised essentially "it's a new kind of gum _for people who chew gum._" Right. Dentyne, Chiclets, Freedent, and others, had _nothing_ to do with creating this huge demand for gum. Sure. Think of the scented, sexy pictures that arrive tucked into every issue of every magazine. Naturally the makers of these perfumes (to which a friend of mine is horribly allergic!) have _nothing_ to do with this huge demand for perfume. They just sat back and waited for the crowds to arrive, then satisfied their insatiable demand for smelly mag inserts. Let's switch to the software business. Do you think that millions of mainframe users were rioting in the streets because of an unfilled need for an Apple II electronic spreadsheet? Of _course_ not. The VisiCalc developers had a neat idea, worked it through to fruition, then marketed and sold the hell out of it, creating not only a market for their own product, but also for the Apple II, making it a plausible computer for business (this was years before the IBM PC). Now to the Ada business. I can bore you all day with anecdotes, but will limit myself to one that I think encapsulates the attitude. A certain Ada compiler vendor, asked about making some additional investments in their Mac compiler, responded "How many Ada programmers do you know that use Macs?" (This was before Apple shifted its allegiance to C++ and was pushing Pascal as the main developer language.) Does this answer seem as backward to you as it did to me? A market orientation, it seems to this academic, would have led them to ask "How many Mac programmers are there in the industry? "How many college students are cutting their programming teeth on Mac Pascal? "How can we capture a share for Ada of the overall Mac developer market? "Will capturing Mac programmers with an Ada compiler lead them to demand Ada even if they move to other platforms? "Is developing a compiler that would grab those programmers and students, blowing the doors off the competition, within our financial grasp?" Instead, they asked how many Ada programmers use Macs. The answer _had_ to be "nearly none", because the Ada compiler for Macs was nearly unknown in the Mac community. Doesn't this seem bizarre to you? I would get off the vendors' case for good if they would show some intellectual honesty, and step forward and say "OK, guys, we blew it; let's put our heads together on how not to blow it again." Instead we get bleating from a few vendors about how _Uncle Sam_ blew it (whenever anything goes wrong in this country, the government is supposed to fix it), and dead silence on the matter from the rest. SURE, Uncle Sam blew it. What surprises me about that fact is that it should surprise anyone. Did the Ada community REALLY not see it coming? (Well, some of us did.) One quote from the note from John Goodsen: "Borland was making Pascal compilers for mass use on PC's." That is a true statement. Breathes there an Ada company that made a compiler for mass use? Nope. They were so focused on the government's mandate that it never occurred to them how they could leverage all their great stuff out to the masses. We all managed to talk ourselves into a few non-facts: (1) Ada is DIFFERENT from other languages. REALLY different. (2) Mere mortals could NEVER learn to get good at it, or even get their arms around it. College freshmen? Forget it. Hardly a day goes by that I don't get an e-mail note from an undergraduate somewhere in the world, usually a place I didn't think had any interest in Ada. "Thanks for doing GW-Ada/Ed, Mike," they say. "Now we see why you advocates think Ada is such a great thing." There are _masses_ out there using this thing; it has exceeded my wildest expectations. And it's only a toy, as we all know. Sure, the fact that GW-Ada/Ed is free has something to do with it. Absolutely. But I get notes asking about interfacing to system calls, graphics libraries, and the like. All those bindings we keep talking about. "No," I say, "for that you ought to buy a commercial compiler; the student prices are comparable to Borland's." Rational, Alsys, AETECH: the market is ALL yours. We created it for you. GW-Ada/Ed has propagated like (excuse the expression) a virus. It runs out of steam pretty fast; it was _intended_ to run out of steam. There is a thirst for industrial-strength compilers for the masses. Are you ready to capture that market? The demand is there. Where is the supply? Can Debbie Weber-Wulff be correct, that the Open Ada compilers are no longer sold to students in Germany? In which other countries is this true? Is it true in the US? Cheers - Mike Feldman ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Michael B. Feldman - chair, SIGAda Education Working Group Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science The George Washington University - Washington, DC 20052 USA 202-994-5253 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet) "Pork is all that stuff the government gives the other guys." ------------------------------------------------------------------------