morand@shire.dec.com (Jean-claude MORAND) (12/29/87)
I would like to invite you to spend 10 minutes to dream about what the software market will be around the year 1998-2000. How will we buy our software? Will it be included with the hardware? (i.e. Hypercard) Will it be charged according to consumption like any major resource (Electricity,Water, Human...)? With the exception of the resident software loaded on the machine (workstation or mainframe) will we use software on a `Network', paying the Network usage and the Server (e.g. The French Minitel system)? What about the Expert systems? How will they be charged? For the shell price only? What would be the pricing criteria? How will the associated knowledge be invoiced to the users? (Percentage of the obtained results could result in very high prices....) How do you think that the customers will react in 12 years from now? Let your imagination go and send me a few notes. I will summarize the inputs in a paper that I will mail back to the contributors or to the net if too many. Thanks in advance to those who will take the time to answer and happy new year. Jean-claude MORAND MORAND@SHIRE.DEC.COM