Re: Is the Ada World Embarrassed by the Defense Industry?

["Ken Garlington" <Ken.Garlington@computer.org>]

"Tucker Taft" <stt@averstar.com> wrote in message
news:3A006EB1.BA1B841F@averstar.com...
: Ken Garlington wrote:
: >
: > Actually, as the person who started this thread, I was talking about
: > marketing. It just seems odd to make choices that damage your historical
: > customer base (military) before you've adequately captured your new base
: > (non-military).
:
: I think we are interested in appealing to military customers.  If you have
: recommendations of the best way to do so, please fire away.
: I honestly had the sense that broadcasting military success stories
: was actually counterproductive in some circles, including some military
: circles.

Advertising military success stories, based on contracts where the language
was specified by the Government, is probably counter-productive. Advertising
success stories where Ada was chosen by a military contractor *on their
own*, based on a business case specific to defense applications, is much
more productive in the defense market. Defense contractors look at what
other companies in their same industry are doing, just like any other
business segment. I have heard more than once that statement "Once the Ada
mandate was dropped, all the other military contractors stopped using Ada,
so why should we use it?" You know what? If you look at what's been
published post-mandate, it's not an easy statement to refute.

At this point, it probably doesn't matter. However, I suspect that not
drawing this distinction in the decision to concentrate on non-defense
applications was a mistake.