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"Kester, Rush W." <[log in to unmask]>
Mon, 21 Aug 2000 09:19:45 -0400
text/plain (51 lines)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert C. Leif, Ph.D. [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Friday, August 18, 2000 8:47 PM
> To: Kester, Rush W.; [log in to unmask]
> Subject: RE: Market for Commercial Software in Ada
>
>
> From: Robert C. Leif, Ph.D.
> To: Rush Kester
>
> As for individuals with full-time jobs being precluded from
> creating start-ups, the present San Diego economy includes
> many very wealth individuals who found the time. There is
> also the SBIR route.

What would you say are the factors that allow these individuals
with full-time jobs to succeed?  How can we foster these in the
Ada community?

> I might note that a major obstacle to entrepreneurship in Ada has
> been the nature of the defense industry. We have had two
> excellent database products written in Ada. Neither has been
> successfully commercialized. The present failure to benefit
> the public by making available to them reliable software products
> based on Ada technology provides should be a significant argument
> against extra funding for the DoD. Ada is an excellent
> counter-example to the  justification of DoD funding based on
> technology transfer to the consumer economy.

I'm curious to know why you feel these database products didn't
succeed.

I can suggest the following:
A) difficulty of bring non-classified, general purpose software
   developed for DoD, out of DoD's "cloke of secrecy"
B) failure to recogize the value of the product
C) failure to properly market the product
D) unwillingness to compete with database giants like IBM,
   Oracle, Sybase
D) satisfaction of the developers with their work on DoD projects

One good thing to note is that some organizations (within the
gov't or gov't funded) are extremely interested in technology
transfer.  I have had the good fortune of working as a contractor
for two: NASA and JHU/APL.  Both organizations have active
programs that encourage and support indivuals who develop
software using gov't funding and want to enhance it for
commercial purposes.

Rush Kester

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