Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 12:05:47 -0700 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Netscape browser Message-ID: <36F2A00B.6715411@softweyr.com> References: <Your message of "Fri, 19 Mar 1999 00:08:41 EST." <Pine.BSF.4.10.9903182359220.23743-100000@freebie.dp.ny.frb.org> <4.1.19990319083523.03f7c470@localhost>
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Brett Glass wrote:
>
> At 01:14 AM 3/19/99 -0800, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
>
> >In any case, the PR value of having working native ports is certainly
> >substantial
>
> Jordan, it's ESSENTIAL. Companies determine the amount they'll invest
> in a platform by looking at NATIVE app sales for that platform.
Bzzzt! Wrong again! Software development companies -- remember I've
worked for several and even RAN one for a year -- care about how many
sales they can get for development dollars. It's called ROI - Return
On Investment. Trust me on this, they don't give a tinkers damn about
what they're spending their money on, just on the ration of how much
in to how much out.
As a for instance, this was a critical choice when Axent decided to release
Security Toolkit on SVR4/x86. We searched long and hard to identify a
least common denominator version of SVR4/x86 so we could develop ONE VERSION
that would run on all x86 ABI compliant systems, and maintained the other
systems for testing only. It ended up running on NCR, Dell (yes, Dell had
their very own SVR4 product in those days), Intel's in-house version, and
UHC SVR4 (which was probably very close to the Dell version). I don't
remember if they ever got it to work on Solaris x86, but it probably did.
--
Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?
Wes Peters +1.801.915.2061
Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com
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