| Re: IDL 4.0 Update Preview (forward for those w [message #3657] |
Tue, 07 March 1995 09:51  |
murthy
Messages: 7
Registered: February 1994
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Junior Member |
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In <gurman-0203950142100001@barkochba.gsfc.nasa.gov>, gurman@uvsp.gsfc.nasa.gov (Joseph B. Gurman) writes:
> In article <3iutjl$e35@alster.dkrz.de>, hrebhan@awi-bremerhaven.de wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Technical Support Summary
>>>
>>> Each new IDL or ENVI license entitles one designated technical contact
>>> at your organization to 60 days of free technical support via
>>> telephone, fax, and E-mail.
>>
>> In other words: instead of one year support for a new licence you only will
>> habe 2 months support for the future ! This is realy bad |-((
>
> I also believe the new maintenance policy is keyed to the original
> license price, so it will become much more expensive to maintain
> node-locked licenses. That is a shame (IMHO), because the license manager
> is such a pain.
>
> Anyone have any opinions on the matter?
>
> Joe Gurman
>
> --
> J.B. Gurman / Solar Physics Branch/ NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/
> Greenbelt MD 20771 USA / gurman@uvsp.gsfc.nasa.gov
> | Federal employees are still prohibited from holding opinions while|
> | at work. Therefore, any opinions expressed herein are somebody |
> | else's. |
Actually, I'm quite happy with the price ($250) to go from 3.0 to 4.0. The only
problem is that I can't get anyone from RSI to tell me if IRIX 4.05 is still
supported or whether 4.0 for Windows will still run under OS/2
Jayant Murthy
murthy@pha.jhu.edu
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| Re: IDL 4.0 Update Preview (forward for those w [message #3687 is a reply to message #3657] |
Fri, 03 March 1995 06:19  |
tribbey
Messages: 5
Registered: October 1994
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Junior Member |
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In article <3j7329$e5a@reznor.larc.nasa.gov>, zawodny@arbd0.larc.nasa.gov (Joseph M Zawodny) writes:
|> In article <gurman-0203950142100001@barkochba.gsfc.nasa.gov> gurman@uvsp.gsfc.nasa.gov (Joseph B. Gurman) writes:
|> >
|> > I also believe the new maintenance policy is keyed to the original
|> >license price, so it will become much more expensive to maintain
|> >node-locked licenses. That is a shame (IMHO), because the license manager
|> >is such a pain.
|> >
|> > Anyone have any opinions on the matter?
|> >
|>
|> We jumped ship on the node locked licenses a few years back when they
|> first came out. It was pretty painless even on our systems (Alphas
|> running OSF/1) despite having to use the newly ported license manager
|> daemon. All in all, I'd have to say that it was much easier than
|> expected. We were also able to consolidate several of our node locked
|> licenses in to a single multi-license network version and thus able to
|> save a bit on annual maint. I am not sure whether this is still a
|> standard practice, as this was done before they hired a "business
|> manager". Since then a number of questionable business decisions have
|> been made.
|>
|> IMHO, RSI is going the wrong way on this. They need to hold the line
|> on maint costs and drop the price of IDL to be more in line with the
|> competition (like PV-WAVE, Hi-Q, Matlab, ...). These are all running
|> at about half the cost of IDL. Market share and size of total market
|> are the key to stable profits. I have no doubt IDL would do well in
|> head to head competition against these other packages, but at twice
|> the cost they price themselves in to another league (and out of the
|> competition). The cost vs units-sold function is not a smooth curve
|> rather it has a number of discontinuities in it. Finding a local
|> maximum in cost*units-sold does not assure one of having found the
|> global max.
|>
|> ... but I ramble.
|>
|>
|> --
|> Joseph M. Zawodny (KO4LW) NASA Langley Research Center
|> Internet: j.m.zawodny@larc.nasa.gov MS-475, Hampton VA, 23681-0001
|> TCP/IP: ko4lw@ko4lw.ampr.org Packet: ko4lw@n4hog.va.usa.na
I think I have to agree. I started using PV-WAVE in 1989 and soon after that started using IDL.
This is a time span of 5-6 years, tops. In that time it seems that RSI has gone from a very
grassroots company to something that I would call 'typically corporate'. Granted, prices almost
invariably go up and not down, but in these past 5 years things have changed rapidly and, IMHO,
seemingly erratic at times.
There was a time when IDL offered features that were not available from the above mentioned
competition. But other than maybe the FFT routines in IDL, the gap between IDL and its competition
has become very narrow. I have heard of a STUDENT edition of IDL priced at ~$200! That's gonna be
hard to sell when an educational copy of MATLAB or Mathematica or MAPLE can be had for a lot less.
In todays corporate and academic climates, it may, IMHO, become very difficult to woo potential customers
when budgets are tight and there are more economically feasible alternatives available.
It would seem, IMHO, that the corporate focus at RSI has moved from being an enabler of science to
begin just another software company trying to sell a product. I think that if you have a good product,
have it priced right, then you don't need a lot of overhead to get people to buy it, use it, and sell others
on it.
... But I ramble, too.
Will Tribbey
Biomedical Imaging Center
University of Tennessee Medical Center at Knoxville
tribbey@scanner.hosp.utk.edu
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| Re: IDL 4.0 Update Preview (forward for those w [message #3700 is a reply to message #3687] |
Sat, 04 March 1995 07:55 |
gurman
Messages: 82
Registered: August 1992
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Member |
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In article <3j7329$e5a@reznor.larc.nasa.gov>, zawodny@arbd0.larc.nasa.gov
(Joseph M Zawodny) wrote:
> In article <gurman-0203950142100001@barkochba.gsfc.nasa.gov>
gurman@uvsp.gsfc.nasa.gov (Joseph B. Gurman) writes:
>>
>> I also believe the new maintenance policy is keyed to the original
>> license price, so it will become much more expensive to maintain
>> node-locked licenses. That is a shame (IMHO), because the license manager
>> is such a pain.
>>
>> Anyone have any opinions on the matter?
>>
>
> We jumped ship on the node locked licenses a few years back when they
> first came out. It was pretty painless even on our systems (Alphas
> running OSF/1) despite having to use the newly ported license manager
> daemon. All in all, I'd have to say that it was much easier than
> expected.
[other comments deleted]
We, too, have some network licenses in our group, but very few.
Primarily, thi sis because we have mission-critical applications running
in IDL and can't afford to lose the ability to run it because a server
node or a hub or a router or a disk drive or..... is down. And the
redundancy of two servers doesn't help if there's a double failure. In a
mission-critical application, I want to be able to pick the critical
components, not have RSI pick FLEX for me.
I really don't understand why RSI is discriminating against
node-locked licenses, which presumably already bring them in more income
per box than networked licenses (in that on a node-locked license, you
need to license the maximum number of seats you'll ever need on that box,
whereas with network servers, you could do it statistically, and license
fewer seats total, on the model that not all the seats on the network will
be occupied simultaneously.
Guess that's why I'm not a vice-president of RSI....
Joe Gurman
--
Joseph B. Gurman / NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/ Solar Data Analysis Center / Code 682 / Greenbelt MD 20771 USA / gurman@uvsp.gsfc.nasa.gov
| Federal employees are still prohibited from holding opinions while at work. Any opinions expressed herein must therefore be someone else's. |
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| Re: IDL 4.0 Update Preview (forward for those w [message #3713 is a reply to message #3687] |
Fri, 03 March 1995 14:08 |
chase
Messages: 62
Registered: May 1993
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Member |
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>>>> > "Joseph" == Joseph M Zawodny <zawodny@arbd0.larc.nasa.gov> writes:
In article <3j7329$e5a@reznor.larc.nasa.gov> zawodny@arbd0.larc.nasa.gov (Joseph M Zawodny) writes:
Joseph> In article <gurman-0203950142100001@barkochba.gsfc.nasa.gov> gurman@uvsp.gsfc.nasa.gov (Joseph B. Gurman) writes:
Joseph> IMHO, RSI is going the wrong way on this. They need to hold the line
Joseph> on maint costs and drop the price of IDL to be more in line with the
Joseph> competition (like PV-WAVE, Hi-Q, Matlab, ...). These are all running
Joseph> at about half the cost of IDL. Market share and size of total market
Joseph> are the key to stable profits. I have no doubt IDL would do well in
Joseph> head to head competition against these other packages, but at twice
Joseph> the cost they price themselves in to another league (and out of the
Joseph> competition).
I have to disagree with the price comparison to Matlab.
This week I have been pricing Matlab for UNIX workstations. It costs
$3995 for adding a single network license from the MathWorks. You can
save a small amount of money by going through a distributor. An IDL
for UNIX workstations can cost around $3000 for a negotiated price.
Toolboxes for Matlab are an additional cost and they run $1000 to
$2000 _per_ license.
Additionally, now one must pay a yearly maintenance fee for each
Matlab and toolbox license. This fee is 20% of the list price for
each license. This fee is different than that for IDL in that if you
don't pay it, when the license expires Matlab stops working. Thanks
goodness RSI hasn't decided to do this. What if you had a critical
application done in Matlab and at some point could no longer afford to
pay maintenance? It would just stop working after the expiration
date! Granted, the Mathworks offers a perpetual license that does not
have an expiration date, but it costs an _additional_ 40% for each
Matlab and toolbox license.
Compared to Matlab costs, IDL is competitive. IDL is cheaper, but not
hugely. And IDL does not expire if you decide to no longer have
maintenance.
The above comments do not apply to educational pricing nor to PC or
Mac platform pricing.
Chris
--
===============================
Bldg 24-E188
The Applied Physics Laboratory
The Johns Hopkins University
Laurel, MD 20723-6099
(301)953-6000 x8529
chris.chase@jhuapl.edu
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| Re: IDL 4.0 Update Preview (forward for those w [message #3718 is a reply to message #3687] |
Fri, 03 March 1995 04:46 |
zawodny
Messages: 121
Registered: August 1992
|
Senior Member |
|
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In article <gurman-0203950142100001@barkochba.gsfc.nasa.gov> gurman@uvsp.gsfc.nasa.gov (Joseph B. Gurman) writes:
>
> I also believe the new maintenance policy is keyed to the original
> license price, so it will become much more expensive to maintain
> node-locked licenses. That is a shame (IMHO), because the license manager
> is such a pain.
>
> Anyone have any opinions on the matter?
>
We jumped ship on the node locked licenses a few years back when they
first came out. It was pretty painless even on our systems (Alphas
running OSF/1) despite having to use the newly ported license manager
daemon. All in all, I'd have to say that it was much easier than
expected. We were also able to consolidate several of our node locked
licenses in to a single multi-license network version and thus able to
save a bit on annual maint. I am not sure whether this is still a
standard practice, as this was done before they hired a "business
manager". Since then a number of questionable business decisions have
been made.
IMHO, RSI is going the wrong way on this. They need to hold the line
on maint costs and drop the price of IDL to be more in line with the
competition (like PV-WAVE, Hi-Q, Matlab, ...). These are all running
at about half the cost of IDL. Market share and size of total market
are the key to stable profits. I have no doubt IDL would do well in
head to head competition against these other packages, but at twice
the cost they price themselves in to another league (and out of the
competition). The cost vs units-sold function is not a smooth curve
rather it has a number of discontinuities in it. Finding a local
maximum in cost*units-sold does not assure one of having found the
global max.
... but I ramble.
--
Joseph M. Zawodny (KO4LW) NASA Langley Research Center
Internet: j.m.zawodny@larc.nasa.gov MS-475, Hampton VA, 23681-0001
TCP/IP: ko4lw@ko4lw.ampr.org Packet: ko4lw@n4hog.va.usa.na
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| Re: IDL Student Edition for Linux? [message #3787 is a reply to message #3709] |
Thu, 09 March 1995 08:14 |
ps
Messages: 14
Registered: September 1994
|
Junior Member |
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Michael Smith (miff@apanix.apana.org.au) wrote:
: Just speaking of Linux versions, has anyone tried the Linux versions of
: IDL and PV-wave under the NetBSD Linux-emulation mode? I'm not willing
^^^
have you seen that anywhere? I'm desperately looking for it. At the
moment I'm with the PV-Wave for Linux, but that's not the full fun for
an IDL-User...
: to risk Linux for mission-critical applications, but NetBSD is a different
: kettle of fish.
I don't comment on that (allthough having a different oppinion).
I hope (for you) that no Linux-user crossposts that to a Linux-group...
;^)
Peter
------------------ Peter 'PIT' Suetterlin -----------------
| Kiepenheuer Institut | Sternfreunde Breisgau e.V |
| fuer Sonnenphysik | |
| 0761/3198-210 | 0761/71571 |
-<ps@kis.uni-freiburg.de>-<suettpet@sun1.ruf.uni-freiburg.de>--
|
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