At 04:47 PM 12/7/2001 -0500, you wrote: >Free is relative. I pay Microsoft about $4,000 CAD (~2,600 USD) >annually for the MSDN enterprise kit. This gives me every piece of >software that Microsoft sells, including all their operating systems, >every one of their development tools, all of the manuals, etc; plus And in the early days of Windows vs OS/2, the M/S SDK was significantly cheaper than the IBM SDK for OS/2. Of course M/S won, because it was cheaper for the developers to write applications for Windows than OS/2. As has been stated by other posters, businesses buy solutions. >What comparable service did HP ever offer their developer community? Before 1990, HP worked closely with 3rd party software providers. Also consultants/contractors. > >HP's business goal was (or should have been) to make their HP3000 >product attractive for consumers. Their consumer was small business. > What makes a particular computer system attractive to a small >business are applications, preferably cheap applications. That means >a computer company needs to entice as many developers to develop for >their products as possible. Yes > >Making compiler development a profit centre in this case is >ridiculous. It isn't realistic to expect that independent >developers have the resources to fund the development of tools for a Let me be dumb here (I do it well). Just how much does it cost to develope a Cobol compiler? (Put you language here) The specifications do not change all that often. > >I don't believe that HP's business model for the HP3000 was the best >possible. I certainly don't believe that their model for funding >compiler and other application development tools made much sense at >all after 1990. > When did HP anounce the first demise of the 3000? (The one that was canceled.) Anyway, HP hasn't done anything with/for the 3000 for about the last 10 years. Just letting it slowly fade away, so that it would get to a level that would justify killing it. I think it will work this time. Ric [log in to unmask] * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, * * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *