Jim Lux wrote:
The value of a supercomputer under the desk is primarily to the end user
(faster whatever to free up an expensive engineer's time). They don't
see much difference between buying the software for a single processor
or multiprocessor. The ISV won't get many incremental sales from having
a fast box to run it on, because the customer would probably buy it in
Hmmm.... splitting proverbial hairs here ...
If the total cost of the solution is X(hw)+Y(sw) (hardware and
software), and the solution cost on an "accelerated" box is x(hw)+Y(sw),
where x << X, then the ISV may be able to convince the customer to buy
at least incrementally more licenses of the software (which at the
engineering shops we have dealt with, tends to be one of the major
limiting cases for use). Especially if N=Int(X/x) is large enough ( N>3
or so), then the ISV can convince the customer to save money buy more
licenses, on less hardware for about the same performance. ISVs really
want the end users to buy less hardware. Or, more accurately, less
expensive hardware. This frees up more capital for ISV product
purchases. We used to see this happening at SGI all the time, when a
"partner" would badly underspecify the hardware, just to make sure the
customer had enough money to pay full price for the software. Then we
would bear the brunt of "its too slow" and wonder why they were told to
buy an Indy or an O2 for their calculations ...
any case. The end user isn't interested in paying the ISV to port it to
the "supercomputer in a box" at least not on any scale comparable to the
actual cost of doing the port (i.e. they'd probably be willing to spend
In most cases this is true. In some cases, where there is a critical
business dependency, this lack of port could have a non-positive
cascading effect.
<2x for the ported version, but they're also already forking out the
bucks for the box, too.. They tend to view that as the extent of what
they're willing to invest.
We live in the era of "good enough".
Jim
--
Joseph Landman, Ph.D
Founder and CEO
Scalable Informatics LLC,
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
web : http://www.scalableinformatics.com
http://jackrabbit.scalableinformatics.com
phone: +1 734 786 8423
fax : +1 866 888 3112
cell : +1 734 612 4615
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