Re: Another point about Mathematica 8.0
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg116492] Re: Another point about Mathematica 8.0
- From: "Nasser M. Abbasi" <nma at 12000.org>
- Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2011 05:17:24 -0500 (EST)
- References: <ijdo86$f6n$1@smc.vnet.net> <ijg5n4$8vj$1@smc.vnet.net>
- Reply-to: nma at 12000.org
On 2/16/2011 1:34 AM, AES wrote: > > 2) My view of a good business model is one that includes that most > sacrosanct of values (the values so hypocritically endorsed by most > Repugnicans): some reasonable level of competition. What level of > competition does Mathematica face? > That is really strange. So, if one company is successful in making a product that does better than the competition in the market place, you blame the company that it now has nocompetition? Ok, I have a solution for this problem. WRI, please start putting more bugs purposely in Mathematica kernel, just help the competition "catch up". So, if someone does something much better than everyone else, they should stop, pull back, do not do such a good job, so to allow "competition". > 3) I don't think Wolfram is much interested in what my business model > for Mathematica would be (and that might be good judgement on their > part!). But if they asked, I'd say that I'd like a tiered or modular > (or whatever you want to call it) approach where increasing more capable > versions of Mathematica were available at increasing price points -- > just like most every other product in the marketplace. > The above is the worst ever model possible for a software product. So, you want something like this? Mathematica Lite edition Mathematica lite plus Mathematica lite advanced edition Mathematica Junior edition Mathematica JuniorPremium edition Mathematica home edition Mathematica home edition Premium Mathematica home starter edition Mathematica home Enterprise edition Mathematica professional Lite edition Mathematica professional starter edition Mathematica professional Premium edition Mathematica professionalpersonal edition Mathematica Enterprise edition Mathematica Enterprise ultimate edition Mathematica Enterprise premiere edition That would be a really Wonderfull buessines model. Good for the marketing department maybe, but bad and confusing for users. > Of course, this may be impossible for Mathematica, because of the way in > which it is fundamentally "all one big, monster program that does > everything, and could never be 'modularized'". Well, if true, that's > just one of the serious negative side effects of Mathematica's "all one > big monster program" approach. > You got things completely in reverse there. One of the best things about Mathematica software IS integration. One opens the box, and all the tools are there, in one place. You might to read this blog entry about the "wonders" of breaking software into separate "toolboxes" from that "other" system http://www.walkingrandomly.com/?p=2876 I'll quote the relevent part from the above page here, since it is short and funny: "Me: ?The optimisation toolbox finds A minimum near to your starting guess. It may or may not be THE minimum of your function. The global optimisation toolbox, on the other hand, attempts to find THE minimum.? User: ?Well, I want THE minimum obviously. So, I guess I?ll take the global optimisation toolbox please.? Me: THE minimum costs more money than just A minimum. Twice as much in fact, since you need to buy the standard optimisation toolbox AND the global optimisation toolbox if you want THE minimum. User: <Deep in thought while they consider how far their grant is going to stretch> Me: The standard optimisation toolbox won?t cost you anything here since we have a set of licenses for it on our network license server. User: OK OK. I?ll make do with that. I suppose I could just make LOTS of starting guesses and run the standard optimisation toolbox routines in parallel on my 12-core monster? Then I can take the best result and there will be a better chance that it will be THE minimum, right? Me: That?ll need the Parallel computing toolbox?which costs extra!" --Nasser