Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!daitc!jkrueger@daitc.daitc.mil
From: jkrueger@daitc.daitc.mil (Jonathan Krueger)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: RISC v. CISC
Message-ID: <223@daitc.daitc.mil>
Date: 2 Nov 88 04:09:03 GMT
References: <156@gloom.UUCP> <890@cps3xx.UUCP> <10194@cup.portal.com> <754@wsccs.UUCP> <359@auspex.UUCP>
Sender: jkrueger@daitc.daitc.mil
Reply-To: jkrueger@daitc.daitc.mil (Jonathan Krueger)
Organization: Defense Applied Information Technology Center
Lines: 22
In-reply-to: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)

In article <359@auspex.UUCP>, guy@auspex (Guy Harris) writes:
>I suspect a lot of the "expensive software and cheap hardware" types
>are comparing the *production* costs of the hardware with the
>*development* costs of the software

This is a good point.  However, a complete analysis adds up life cycle
costs and divides by number of runs or copies sold, arriving at each
unit's amortized costs.  This makes either custom hardware or software
look very expensive indeed.  Yet it may cost no more than general
purpose hardware or software, where the R&D is amortized over many
sales or runs.  More generally, I suspect that many "expensive
software and cheap hardware" types are comparing the per-unit costs of
the hardware with the unamortized costs of the software.

But since most of us customize software rather than hardware, this may
be a valid comparison.  If a vendor can sell you a workstation for
$10K, including its payback on his R&D, but it costs you $20K to
develop the software that will run on it, it seems valid to say that
the software cost more than the hardware.  If you run the same
software on ten such workstations, of course the opposite is true.

-- Jon
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