Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!spdcc!ima!esegue!johnl
From: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: VLIW Architecture - References, oth
Message-ID: <1989Oct23.135425.1586@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us>
Date: 23 Oct 89 13:54:25 GMT
References: <771301127@8909291517.AA00260@maxwell.ece.c> <130800001@peg> <1989Oct20.234510.955@world.std.com> <2540@uceng.UC.EDU>
Reply-To: johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine)
Organization: Segue Software, Cambridge MA
Lines: 19

In article <2540@uceng.UC.EDU> dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny) writes:
>Another possible tactic is for hardware vendors to fund development of
>complex, compute-intensive software, and then give it away to users
>when they buy hardware. If you can successfully bundle enough software
>to insure the box is choked the second it gets installed, and the
>software is worth running, then you've got your repeat business right
>there. ...

Some of us remember when such programs were called "operating systems" and
they were bundled in free with the hardware.  Then due to a conbination of
government action against IBM and everybody noticing that they were spending
as much on the free software as they were on the hardware, they started to
charge for the software.  My experience in the software business tells me that
we software types will have no trouble pissing away whatever hardware
resources we can get our hands on, without subsidies from hardware vendors.
-- 
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 864 9650
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {ima|lotus|spdcc}!esegue!johnl
Massachusetts has over 100,000 unlicensed drivers.  -The Globe