Prentice Bisbal wrote:
It is extraordinarily rare that an entity will give you permission to
use their name in any advertising. The most you can hope for is,
generally, a press release.
And what would you call all the press that IBM got for Roadrunner and
Cray got for Jaguar when those systems were at the top of the Top500?
"extraordinarily rare"
Also, at SC09, the ORNL booth was showing off that they now had the top
system, and weren't hiding the fact that it was built by Cray. I would
call that a lot more than just a "press release". All that industry
Again, academic/national labs gain prestige points by doing this.
Prestige rarely, if ever, turns into revenue, and even less frequently,
into profit.
media coverage is a lot better advertising than any single paid
advertisement.
Hmm .... see above. Did this media coverage inspire you to purchase a
Blue Gene? Or an XT6?
Prestige does not translate into (profitable) revenue.
I think you meant to say "Prestige does not always translate into
profitable revenue.
Thank you ... I agree, I implied the "extraordinarily rare" aspect of
this.
Basically prestige plus $4 + change will get you a Grande sized mocha
triple shot from Starbucks. Not much more than that. This isn't a
jaundiced view (ok, I hope not!) of the situation ... for-profit
companies can't afford to be paid in "prestige".
Put it another way. Supposed the IAS's granting agencies decided that
they would provide grants that didn't cover complete costs, but provided
"prestige" for getting the grant in the first place. Even though IAS
isn't a for-profit institution per se, it still has bills to pay, and
people to employ. This sort of scenario is the case in for-profit HPC
in academia. The prestige earned doesn't pay the bills. You can't take
the prestige to the bank and earn interest on it. Its an intangible ...
good will ... is how I think it is accounted for.
But is it valuable? Ask IBM how many more BG's the've sold as a result
of that "marketing campaign". As I said, I think there is a fundamental
disconnect between what people would like to believe, and the (rather
harsh) realities of the market. This is not a bash. This is an
observation.
Rolls Royce, Bentley, and Lamborghini are just a few examples of
prestige not translating into profits.
Bentley had been up for sale, RR is now owned by Tata, as is Jaguar.
Prestige does not pay the bills. And if I am wrong on this, please,
educate me ... I'd like to figure out how to do this.
Lexus, Acura, and Infiniti are all examples of prestige translating into
huge profits. Lexus, Acura, and Infiniti autos aren't radically
Er ... no. They are all examples of really good marketing, and not
trying to compete on price.
different from the Toyotas, Hondas, and Nissans they are based on, but
the cost more, mostly because of the prestige of the upmarket name.
Thats marketing, not prestige. When you introduce a new brand, it
doesn't have a history, and hence, no prestige.
Marketing is what enables you to attract customers. Some customers will
be put off by price. You either lower your pricing to keep them, or you
ignore them as a market. The folks you indicated, all ignore the price
sensitive elements of the market. Which makes them vulnerable to attack
by the Hyundai's and others of the world.
They make up this loss by selling to money-making corporations for a
much bigger margin.
Hmmm ....
I think there may be a fundamental disconnect between the assumptions of
folks in academia and the reality of this particular market. I am not
bashing on Prentis. I would like to point out that the "much larger
margins" in a cutthroat business such as clusters are ... er ... not
much larger.
I could bore people with anecdotes, but the fundamental take home
message is, if you believe this (much larger margins bit), you are
mistaken.
Any profit is "much larger" than a loss.
So is a $1 USD profit on a $1M USD sale a reasonable profit? And if the
loss is $100 USD on the $1M USD sale, is the $1 >> $100 ?
No.
For example, I would not be surprised if IBM practically gave away
RoadRunner to Los Alamos in exchange for the computing expertise at Los
Alamos to help develop such an architecture and then be able to say that
IBM builds the world's fastest computers (and that your company can have
one just like it, for a price). Oh, and the users at Los Alamos probably
provide lots of feedback to IBM which helps them build better systems in
the future. (Don't shoot me if I'm wrong. I'm just theorizing here)
Don't sell the folks at TJ Watson/IBM Research short. They are a very
bright group. The co-R&D elements are a way IBM can dominate the HPC
bits at the high end, and provide something that looks like an in-kind
contribution type of model so that LANL and others can go to their
granting agencies and get either more money, or fulfill specific
contract points.
I wasn't selling the brains IBM short. We all know that two heads are
better then one when tackling a problem. I was saying that if IBM
geniuses = good, and LANL geniuses = good, then IBM geniuses + LANL
geniuses = better.
Ahh .... ok. IBM has some really good folks at their research locations.
IBM is a business, and in most cases, won't generally have a particular
business unit make a loss for "prestige" points. That doesn't make the
board/shareholders happy.
How much profit did IBM make off of Deep Blue when it beat Gary
Kasparov? None that I know of. However, it did provide IBM R&D
opportunities and when it finally beat Gary Kasparov, plenty of free
advertising for IBM through news coverage, and ...prestige.
... which, as you note, translated to no profit. The press however,
provided them effectively free marketing. Publish this story, and we
don't have to pay for it.
... which is worth ... what?
How many BG's did IBM sell as a result of the chess match? How many
people made a decision, influenced in part, by that PR and free marketing?
Thats the point. Like it or not, prestige doesn't placate shareholders,
board members, or wall street. They want to see profits, pure and simple.
--
Joseph Landman, Ph.D
Founder and CEO
Scalable Informatics Inc.
email: [email protected]
web : http://scalableinformatics.com
http://scalableinformatics.com/jackrabbit
phone: +1 734 786 8423 x121
fax : +1 866 888 3112
cell : +1 734 612 4615
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