Roy writes:

> >I expect that if OpenMPE somehow succeeds and MPE is ported to a new
>  >platform, a new wave of migrations off of MPE will occur when the vendor
>  >licensing fees are announced.
>
>  Not if the emulator enables us to define our own HP Susan # and CPU Name
>  values :-)

Roy may think he's kidding, but we've been very seriously mulling over how
we're going to support the emulator model. We very much want it to succeed,
but if it does succeed, it's going to present us all with a new world of
users.

The most likely emulator model that will develop will be done commercially,
probably developed by Allegro, probably written by Gavin Scott, with charges
for the emulator oossibly something along the lines of total database usage
less than 2.5 GB: free, other than distribution costs (ca. $150); 25 GB total
usage, possibly $5000; 250 GB and up, possibly $25,000.

It's important to understand that these prices are wholly the result of my
imagination and nothing more, but that is the model that I have been lobbying
for. If this model does come to pass, an item that the emulator will need to
provide is a usage tier readout. A license-tier level and a unique machine
identifier will get us back to essentially where we are now. There are unique
identifiers in virtually every machine manufactured, even if they weren't
intended to be that directly. In PC's, several such numbers occur: the MAC
address of the NIC card, as well as motherboard-based serial numbers that can
be read by the emulator.

Although tiered pricing has rightfully been skewered many times as a moral
outrage here on the list when it's used as essentially a mechanism for
blackmail, it's also just as necessary a mechanism if vendors are going to
take the risk to develop new software for a particular market. QCTerm be
damned, all software can't be free.

We currently sell our report writer for a fixed price of $12,500, but we also
give significant discounts for organizations that run machines smaller than
what we consider a base machine, letting them pay the difference as they move
up in processing power later on. We're planning on doing the same thing once
the emulator comes into existence, with the bottom tier likely being
somewhere very nearly free.

The primary advantage that the emulator offers, besides the obvious
significant reduction in hardware costs, is that it can be inexpensive enough
to get it back into schools, both at universities and trade schools. It's in
our own self-enlightened interest to have our product be there too, a
virtually no cost to either us or the user. But whether QueryCalc is there or
not, I can't say how important I believe it is that MPE be gotten back into
classrooms. If we get it there, there's basically no end to how bright the
future can be for the O/S.

Wirt Atmar

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