Date: Thu, 27 Oct 1994 16:00:53 -0700
   From: Mike Stump <mrs@cygnus.com>

   In article <m0qevhq-000I8SC.cygnus.fsb@crynwr.com> you write:

   >A single large order of adapters can pay for development of a packet
   >driver.  And from the manufacturer's point of view, they might not
   >make any money on that deal, but they've got the repeat business from
   >that customer, and they're all set for the next packet driver
   >customer.

   If this is how your doing business, than your market is not yet
   mature.  The right way to do it, is to hit up the manufacture of the
   chipset, by using the leverage of a board maker that is trying to
   decide which chipset to use, for the development costs and
   maintenance.  Your working software is a feature of the chipset, not
   really the board (it sounds like).

It used to be the board, because the same chipset on different boards
was implemented differently.  For about the last two years, there's
only been one way to put an Ethernet chip on a board, so as you note,
I've been doing more work with the silicon houses.  For example, AMD,
and Cirrus Logic.

   Hum, this is interesting...  I think the best places to expand
   free-software market may in fact be places in which the software
   enables hardware.  The way to get money, is to get a good following
   with some hardware, to create a situation, in which the competitors of
   the hardware in question, see the value of the enabling that your
   software does for the hardware, and then gives you a small percent of
   their income to enable their hardware.

Yes, definitely!

   But, until there is a massive CD-ROM industry and it matures (large
   companies going out of business), we cannot hope to see much money
   from them.  Adam, what is your take on this?  Do you see any holes in
   my thinking?

-- 
-russ <nelson@crynwr.com>    http://www.crynwr.com/crynwr/nelson.html
Crynwr Software   | Crynwr Software sells packet driver support | ask4 PGP key
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