Re: University License fees are short sighted of Wolfram Research

From: Dave (nospam_at_nowhere.com)
Date: 03/19/05 

Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 16:33:08 +0000

Richard Fateman wrote:
> You are supposing that you know how to market Mathematica
> better than Stephen Wolfram and his presumably well-paid
> market-droids.

Although if you read his book 'A new kind of science' you soon realise
he is very self-oppionated, with just about the only science book I have
read where the author keeps referring to 'I' all the time. Hence it
would never surprise me if Stephen Wolfram felt that high prices to
universities was the way to go, then that would be the remit of the
marketing people.

> I am sure they have considered many different models and
> have decided that this is the way that makes them the
> most money. Maybe not the most friends.

I'm sure in the short to medium term it does make more money, as it
would take a few years to get universities to heavily adopt Mathematica
and for the graduates to be in a position to specify software when they
are in industry.

> My guess is that the most lucrative sales are to universities,
> and WRI is not about to give it away.

In the science + engineering fields I often see jobs advertised wanting
Matlab skills, but never Mathematica. (I guess jobs at Wolfram would be
an exception!) Looking on the newsgroups, I currently see

maple - 102 messages
mathematica - 388 messages (I do realise this is moderated, which does
not help matters either).
matlab - 2368 messages

I can't be bothered to try to sort out the academic posts from the
non-academic ones. But both these facts (jobs and newsgroups posting)
would indicate Matlab have a much larger share of the mathematical
software market than Mathematica. I wonder if there is any correlation
between this and the fact Matlab is provided to universities (well at
least where I work) at a far lower price.

A quick look on the websites of Wolfram Research and Mathworks shows
Mathematica was launched in 1988, and Matlab in 1984. Wolfram Research
claims there are 7 million users of Mathematica
http://www.wolfram.com/company/background.html

but I wonder if they count users as universities that have site
licenses. Sure, we have a license that would allow 10,000 users to use
it, but in practice since the license fee has to be recovered, in
practice the number of users is far less.

I know some here take the opportunity to slag Wolfram Research off all
the time. I'm not doing that - I like Mathematica, and despite having
access to Matlab too, I prefer the former. But I realise that soon I
will probably have to switch to Matlab, since

a) The university is unlikely to continue the site license with Wolfram.
b) From a point of view of a CV, Matlab skills are more desirable.

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