Symbolics Marketing Strategy

[will taylor <taylor%charon.arc.nasa.gov@RELAY.CS.NET>]

   Date: Mon, 15 Jan 90 14:33 EST
   From: Mark Graffam <Mark@ALDERAAN.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
   
       Date: Fri 12 Jan 90 15:02:21-PST
       From: TAYLOR@PLUTO.ARC.NASA.GOV (Will Taylor)
   
   [ ... ]
       Will CLIM's initial release be as part of Genera 8.0 or will it be
       a layered product?
   
   SYMBOLICS CLIM will be a layered product to be released after Genera 8.0 for non
    CLOE
   customers. It will be bundled into CLOE Release 3.0 for CLOE customers.
   
       If a layered product, can someone send me info on how to procure it
   
       (order #, price, ...) so that I can start the system moving and get it
       as soon as possible.

      We cannot give you the order numbers today. SYMBOLICS CLIM will have three
   additional components over the CLIM core that is distributed from ILA. You shoul
   d
   budget $1K for SYMBOLICS CLIM, if you are not a CLOE customer. We are currently 
   planning
   the initial release of SYMBOLICS CLIM mid summer 1990 for non CLOE customers.
   
       Thanks - Will Taylor         taylor@pluto.arc.nasa.gov
   
   Your welcome -Mark

Recent discussion on SLUG has mentioned Symbolics' declining market share and
lack of penetration into the scientific workstation market. I feel that the
decision to move from DW to CLIM is excellent and am grateful for the people
at ILA for getting the CLIM effort going and "signing" the market's major
Lisp players. Portable user interfaces developed on a Symbolics platform
will be a major plus, however making Symbolics CLIM a layered product rather
than bundling it with Genera is IMHO a major strategic BLUNDER. Many SLUG
members have complained about the difficulty in "selling" Symbolics
hardware/software to management -- it is harder and harder to make a case
for the superiority of what Symbolics provides. Having to spend another
$1K per machine up to the site rate, makes this even more difficult.

David Moon's recent posting talks about something like "dramatic"
software marketing initiatives to come ...

Several people have discussed on this list the benefits of Concordia,
Statice, & Joshua, however their hefty price tags preclude many users
from being able to afford them.

I propose that Symbolics bundle CLIM, Concordia, Statice, & Joshua into
Genera for NO increase in software purchase/maintenance costs to users.
Then agressively market these capabilities which would now be part of 
the basic Symbolics Genera operating system. Then instead of sales reps
saying ".. we have these dynamite productivity systems (CLIM, Concordia, 
Statice, & Joshua) .... but ahem, it will cost you an ''arm and a leg'' ...",
they can say that this group of productivity systems (nice phrase?) is
standard with the basic operating system. This will result is more users 
saying " .. I want to get my hands on a Symbolics 3650, XL400, MacIvory, 
UX400S, etc because besides the unsurpassed (but the hounds are rapidly
closing) development environment, I can program PORTABLE applications
using CLtL, CLOS, & CLIM; AND I can development state of the art
documentation systems, object oriented data base systems, and expert
systems on Symbolics platforms .. ". Then Symbolics sells more Ivory
boards and market penetration increases, etc.

Symbolics desparately needs a "dramatic" software marketing stategy
to stay afloat and the above is my suggestion for part of it.

- Will Taylor         taylor@pluto.arc.nasa.gov