Re: Symbolics Marketing Strategy

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Date: Fri, 26 Jan 90 10:13 PST
From: Robert D. Pfeiffer <RDP@ALAN.kahuna.decnet.lockheed.com>
Subject: Re: Symbolics Marketing Strategy
To: SLUG@ALAN.kahuna.decnet.lockheed.com
In-Reply-To: <19900125165053.5.MILLER@DOUGHNUT.CS.ROCHESTER.EDU>
Message-ID: <19900126181356.2.RDP@THOMAS.kahuna.decnet.lockheed.com>

    Date: Thu, 25 Jan 90 11:50 EST
    From: miller@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU (Brad Miller)

    The problem I see with this strategy is that it reinforces the idea that
    Symbolics has to make their money on the hardware. People buy their systems
    for the software, and NOT the hardware. I'd much rather see them price their
    software according to what the market will bear, and make it available on a
    variety of platforms. Concordia, for instance, needs to be price competitve
    and marketed as an alternative to FrameMaker.

    And lest we forget, some of us bought our Symbolics machines as, essentially
    CASE machines. To increase our productivity writing our own applications. We
    really don't need or want the additional cost of this added software (other
    than CLIM which does relate to development) passed on to us in future
    hardware or software costs, because we don't use them. To us, Symbolics
    machines are development machines, not application engines.

I very much agree with your viewpoint.  But, as I argued in another
message, I think that Concordia and Statice are very much a part of a
complete CASE environment.  This is because, no matter what the
software project, significant design and user documentation (with
diagrams) needs to be developed.  And a shared, (object-oriented)
relational database is at the heart of rapid prototyping (which is also
very much part of CASE).