A very successful Ada marketing disaster in Boston

[world!srctran@uunet.uu.net (Gregory Aharonian)]

    Last month I coordinated an Ada booth at a local NASA small business show.
It was a very successful disaster, though I learned much.  I had asked people
and companies to donate $50 to help cover booth costs, in return for having
their literature displayed.

     First the good news.  I was able to successful coordinate a variety
of Ada companies in sponsoring the booth.  I would like to thank the
following companies/people for donating $50 and their literature for the
booth:

                S.T.O. (me)       -  Government Source Code Directory
		Walnut Creek      -  Ada CDROMs
		AETECH            -  Ada compilers and libraries
		SET Laboratories  -  Multi-language metric analyzer
		Silicon Graphics  -  MP/Ada multiprocessor Ada compiler
		EVB               -  Ada Training
		AdaNet            -  NASA's Ada repository
		Mike Feldman      -  Books and papers on Ada
		AdaIC             -  Introductory brochure on Ada

     According to my records, this is the largest number of Ada companies
being displayed at any non-Mandated show in the Boston area in the last ten
years, a horrible statistic.  I was very disappointed that none of the large
Ada companies got involved, none of the Ada9X or STARS contractors were 
willing to donate $50 to have Ada stuff displayed, no support whatsoever
from people receiving all of the Ada money.

     In the case of AdaIC, who couldn't contribute $50 because of contractual
problems, the fee was waived (go talk to ARPA - they seem to know how to throw
around money).  In return, I hope they lend me their booth display equipment
at the next Ada marketing effort.
     So organizationally, things went fine.  Everyone mailed their stuff to
me in time, I was able to display it, and for those with lots of leftovers,
I mailed back to them their materials.  In addition, through the vision and
generosity of Walnut Creeks, I am donating their Ada CDROMs used for display
to local libraries, including the library ESD uses at Hanscom Air Force Base.
     So the good news is that when you have a group of people actually
interested in Ada, and someone willing to coordinate a joint effort, it is
easy to get things done.  This is something that should have been done years
ago, especially by either SIGADA or ASA, and one more reason to form an Ada
Business Council.

     The bad news was that most of the people attending the show had general
interests, many being hardware manufacturers interested in supplying parts
to NASA projects.  Thus while I passed out lots of Ada material, I could have
passed out much more.  So while the benefits to the sponsors was probably
about the $50 they contributed, I had hoped it would have been better.  Given
the many C++ booths at the show, it was good though there was some Ada stuff.

     Also, I received a lot of strange comments about Ada.  Some of the
small companies doing embedded work for NASA in C has never heard of Ada,
which surprised me.  Users of CAD systems for NASA work, while not programmers
had heard of C/C++, but not Ada.  A few graphics designers commented that
the Ada literature being distributed could be better laid out, made more
eye catching.

     Many people stopping by the booth did so because their eye caught the
stack of CDROMs I had laid out - CDROMs are still enough of a novelty to
capture attention and get people to stop at your booths - something for Ada
vendors to take advantage.  That stack of CDROMs was more useful than all
of the literature laid out.

     On a sad note, Ada is in deep, deep trouble, if one attendee's comments
hold true.  At one point, a manager from a small networking/simulation company
stopped by the booth and spent some time talking.  They do simulation work
for NASA and maybe for the DoD.  After he said that they used C, I asked why
and if they had considered Ada.  His comments reflect the concerns I've 
posted to comp.lang.ada that the Mandated world has been ignoring for years,
whether or not this person's perceptions are right or wrong.
     He felt that Ada compilers were too expensive, had a reputation for not
allowing rapid prototyping, had few application libraries to link to, little
demand from his customers for Ada, there are few qualified programmers to call
upon for projects, and to some extent was avoiding Ada because of the many
reports in Computerworld and Government Computer News about squabbles over
Ada inside the DoD.  I described some of Rational's products which met his
concerns, and he seemed interested, until I mentioned prices, at which point
he said that they were too pricey, given the systems Microsoft and Borland
are offering for C++.
     Right or wrong, this guys perceptions are probably common for many
programmers and managers outside the Mandated world.  And they won't change
until the Mandated world makes an effort to get out there and sell the
language.  40 companies at TriAda and 1 or 2 elsewhere is disgraceful, and
slowly allows Ada to dieoff.

     Anyways, thanks to those who help with this effort.  To make Ada succeed
on its own outside the Mandated World will require many more such efforts.
It's a shame all the people with all of the professionalism and vision and
money in Ada ten years ago didn't start then.
-- 
**************************************************************************
 Greg Aharonian                                      srctran@world.std.com
 Source Translation & Optimization                            617-489-3727
 P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178