Re: "No" Ada jobs in the Boston area

[emery@goldfinger.mitre.org (David Emery)]

As a long time stockholder in Rational Software Corporation and
previously Verdix (I bought my first Verdix stock in '84 or '85), I
can appreciate the emphasis on 'making money'.  But, I do NOT think
that this attitude is the way to win in the long run.

Business schools seem to teach techniques for optimizing short-term
returns, with the goal of short term increases in profitability and
stock price.  ("Jack up the price, then cash in your chips.")  This
has resulted in an over-emphasis on short term returns on investment,
at the expense of building long-term market share.  

I think that the Ada compiler industry has been guilty of trying to
recoup profits too quickly, and thereby charging too much for its
entry-level products.  

Then, an even greater sin, my experience is that the compiler vendors
then short-change product support, taking the resources and placing
them into new ventures.  The net result is a portfolio of
poorly-supported, buggy products, that do not "make friends and
influence people".

A related problem that I've seen from some vendors is a sense of "we
know more than you do", with tools and marketing approaches that
emphasize the vendor's solution at the expense of the customer's
needs.  Or, in other words, the vendor says "You can only write
software our way, and you have to pay us a lot of $$ for all these
tools we think you should be using."  (Sounds like IBM, Wang and DEC
before those companies hit the rocks.)

Maybe I'm starting to whine like GA, but there are occasions when even
GA hits on a grain of truth.

I saw my investment in Verdix and Rational as a long-term investment,
but ended up selling most of my shares when it became clear that the
corporate approach was to maximize short-term results.  I still retain
some Verdix/Rational shares, if nothing else than as a memento of what
could have been...  Maybe software company stocks will become
collectors items like RR stocks are now...

				dave
--
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-- "A good plan violently executed -NOW- is better than a perfect plan
--  next week"                                      George Patton
-- "Any damn fool can write a plan.  It's the execution that gets you
--  all screwed up"                              James Hollingsworth
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