Keeping the U.S. Computer Industry Competitive Defining the Agenda (1990) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
3. Software
3. Software
Pages 30-39
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 30... ...
The current situation has changed dramatically in less than 15 years. Prior to the introduction of the personal computer, software functioned somewhat as a "loss leader," an often-free inducement for buying and continuing to buy a particular vendor's computer equipment.
|
From page 31... ...
In addition, even the largest computer companies recognize that they have neither the financial resources nor the technical staff necessary to provide the full array of software support that potential buyers of their machines now demand while larger buyers of software, with similar resource limitations, look to the software industry to meet their needs affordable. Out of these seeds grew the burgeoning software industry.
|
From page 32... ...
Noted Lawrence Tester of Apple Computer, "In order to compete with, say, the Philippines where the labor costs are lower for programmers, we need to lower our overall cost of producing software by improving our tools." In the software industry, low levels of productivity growth are a shared shortcoming, besetting firms in the United States, Japan, Western Europe, and everywhere else. In the United States, the most visible efforts to enhance productivity in software development, including the software research programs at MCC and the Software Productivity Consortium (SPC)
|
From page 33... ...
"These packages can be produced anywhere," said Belady, suggesting that U.S. hums serving this market will be most vulnerable to foreign competition because "everybody has the same chance." In Belady's second category, systems integration, competition will be determined by the ability to manage complexity, to develop applications tailored to the idiosyncrasies of individual enterprises: "What you have to do in order to make this complex integrated application work is to provide the glue, that is, additional software, which does the traffic control and holds the pieces together." This category, according to Belady, is where the greatest business opportunities may lie and where U.S.
|
From page 34... ...
major projects on teams to revise other people's software, which is what one ends up doing in industry quite a lot." The value of increasing the exposure of faculty and graduate students to industrial software problems and development conditions has been noted elsewhere by the Computer Science and Technology Board.s A recurring theme was the importance of interdisciplinary training that goes beyond software and hardware issues per se. Tester related such training to maintaining a specific competitive advantage: "One thing that I think the United States can maintain a lead in is human interface design, which makes application software distinctive, but to do that, our students have to be very broad in their education.
|
From page 35... ...
To remedy gaps in expertise and to sidestep licensing restrictions, Japanese firms have also established software research laboratories in the United States. Other countries that have made their domestic software industries economic priorities, such as the People's Republic of China, India, Malaysia, and Taiwan, are focusing, for now, on large-volume reproduction of basic software rather than on innovation.
|
From page 36... ...
The impacts of Japan's most visible efforts to achieve parity in software markets are uncertain. Colloquium participants saw neither the Japanese FifthGeneration Computer project nor The Real-Time Operating System Nucleus (TRON)
|
From page 37... ...
"Standardizing processor designs by standardizing operating systems, my company feels, twill make the] United States very vulnerable to competition from abroad....
|
From page 38... ...
The implications are similar for firms that develop software only. By fostering high levels of compatibility among the computers of different vendors, standardization would greatly expand software markets, uniting a fragmented customer base and eliminating the need to write unique code for each of the many operating systems that now exist.
|
From page 39... ...
PCrE accommodates existing and emerging software engineering tools, which permits programmers to exchange tools and researchers to develop new ones that enhance the utility of the software substrate. Eureka, a European Community research and development program focused on commercially promising technologies and innovations, has provided funding for a software factory based on PCTE.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.