Re: Ada Pricing & Quality ?? - Vendors

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

>1. Price
>Ada prices are declining across the board.  However, you can't compare Unix
>workstation prices with PC prices.  PC Ada compilers are priced much less
>than your $30k, and (I hear) are quite competitively priced to C compilers.

You hear wrong.  Compared to PC compilers such as Microsoft's Visual C++,
PC Ada compilers are uncompetitive.  See my post on Visual C++ killing Ada.
For very reasonable prices, you get many CASE capabilities for C++ systems,
while not so for Ada.

>What do you expect to pay for a non-free C or C++ compiler on a workstation?
>I'd really like the input.

Less than $900, and I want a variety of CASE capabilities thrown in.  I can
get this for C++, and I get a CDROM thrown in with lots of goodies.  Further,
I can save much development time by reusing the many large commercial and
public domain C/C++ systems available - a factor in choosing a compiler.
Besides, a Pentium-based system is close enough to a workstation, for PC
prices to set the standard for workstation prices.

>Also, cross-compilers generally cost more than native compilers because the 
>development cost has to be amortized over a smaller market.

Given that 85% of the embedded market is done in C/C++, as measured by use
and sales of products (for example, Intermetrics C compiler), Ada will never
be competitive in the embedded market as C/C++ is amortized over a much
larger market.

    In general, as long as I can get Rational-like capabilities in C++ systems
at PC prices, Ada will never be competitive.  And you can't just match prices;
you have to offer a significantly lower price, a lower price I don't think any
Ada compiler vendor can offer at this late stage in the language wars.  You
need to sell a price half as much for the same capability in another language
to win market share - something like a Visual Ada at $99.

>2. Useful libraries
>We are planning interfaces to standard support libraries in our nextgeneration
>products.

    Again, too little too late.  First you can't offer all of the library
support that exists in the C world.  Just look at the catalogs from places
like Programmers Shop - hundreds of C/C++ libaries for everything under the
sun.  Interfaces doesn't help, as it puts you behind the market in time, as
you have to wait until the C/C++ is out before you can start the interface.
Besides interfaces to another language always sends out the wrong signal,
like Cubans using the dollar for their economy.

    The Ada industry (if such a thing exists) should have been offering 
libraries starting in the late 1980's.  Ada83 is plenty good to be used for
such libraries.  But what kills the Ada library business (as measured by the
number of companies that went broke trying to do so), and Ada in general,
is that Mandated contractors don't buy libraries - thanks to Defense
procurement regulations and N-I-H syndromes.

>4. Are we willing to invest to make Ada succeed?  
>YES.  WATCH THIS SPACE.

    I have been watching this space, and the general industry, since the
mid-1980's.  Where have you guys been (not just Intermetrics - but all of the
vendors)?  Ada should have been advertised in the general computing media,
pushed at the general computing trade shows, and pitched to the editors many
many years ago.  Now whatever you do will be too little too late.

    When the Ada money was flowing freely in the 1980's, some of it should
have been used to kickstart an non-Mandated Ada industry.  But instead, it
was plowed back into short term sheltered profits of the Mandated world.
Even today, at major software CASE trade shows, there is at best only one
or two Ada booths, while at Tri-Ada there will be forty.  Too many are still
too dependent on the sheltered environment of the Mandate.

    I presented a lot of market data on C/C++'s dominance at WadaS, data
important to crafting a strategy to win market share for Ada outside the
Mandated world.  Since then not one Ada company has shown any interest in
the data.

    At every Tri-Ada since the mid-1980's, there should have been the
equivalent of a war map showing the market shares and trends of programming
languages, and at least one session comparing current Ada systems with
current C/C++ systems, if nothing else, to see how the enemy is doing.

    I will make a bet with you Mike (winner buys dinner at Joyce Chen) -
that relative market shares outside the Mandated world for Ada and C/C++
will not change much over the next three years, based on the collective
marketing strategies of the Ada compiler vendors as they are now formulated.

-- 
**************************************************************************
 Greg Aharonian                                      srctran@world.std.com
 Source Translation & Optimization                            617-489-3727
 P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178