From james.isaak@ljo.dec.com Tue Jun 10 22:08:01 1997 Received: from mail11.digital.com (mail11.digital.com [192.208.46.10]) by dkuug.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA09709 for ; Tue, 10 Jun 1997 22:07:55 +0200 Received: from cst.ako.dec.com (cst.ako.dec.com [16.151.72.40]) by mail11.digital.com (8.7.5/UNX 1.5/1.0/WV) with SMTP id PAA20435 for ; Tue, 10 Jun 1997 15:54:25 -0400 (EDT) Received: by cst.ako.dec.com with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.995.52) id <01BC75B7.3B07E790@cst.ako.dec.com>; Tue, 10 Jun 1997 15:59:08 -0400 Message-ID: From: James Isaak To: "'a PASC SEC'" , "'a WG15'" Cc: "'s Walker, Andrew'" , "'s Follett, Bob'" , "'s Holleman, Dick'" , "'s Higgenbottom, Karen'" , "'s Kaleda, Laurel'" , "'s Kevra, Lorraine'" Cc: "'s Lewine, Don'" , "'s Loughry, Don'" , "'s Needham, Barry'" , "'s Robinson, Gary'" , "'s Royster, Curtis'" , "'s Schuz, Fritz'" Subject: POSIX value in the UNIX market - $84 Billion Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 15:59:03 -0400 X-Mailer: Microsoft Exchange Server Internet Mail Connector Version 4.0.995.52 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here is a better researched analysis of the impact of POSIX on the UNIX market based on two primary sources of information. HP's assertion in the Dec 96 ASTM "Standardization News" that 30% of their UNIX business is directly attributable to POSIX (ignoring that they claim 35% was strongly influenced by same); and IDC's estimated sizes for the UNIX market, and market share. (Folks like Uniforum and the trade publications regularly quote IDC numbers for UNIX (and other) market comparisons.) The UNIX market numbers I have are: 19 Billion in 92; $34 Billion in 95; and est $53 Billion for 98. I've projected this from 1988 to 1998 as a cumulative $280 Billion. I assume that HP's experience is paralleled by other suppliers since all major UNIX suppliers have been POSIX compliant since 1988/89; and that the 30% reflects raw market growth that would not have been there if we did not have the standard. The total impact of POSIX over the 10 year window presented given these assumptions is $84 Billion. The impact on the market leaders (Sun and HP have been in the 15% share window for some time) is $12.5 Billion over that 10 year window. In a totally independent evaluation, I've tried to estimate the impact on the UNIX market as a result of NOT having established a GUI standard in 1989/90) when that could have been done. (And I would add an architecturally neutral distribution format standard was also needed; Java is a current example, others also existed.) The potential market targeted by UNIX in 1990-1995 with the full set of standards would be a percentage of the 100 million PC's sold on desktops. UNIX, at least in the early years here, would have been more demanding (disk storage, RAM, etc.) and with multitasking, 32 bit addressing and such, would have attracted the high end of this desk top market (Say the $3k to whatever price range.) Pick your % you feel UNIX could have captured, times the average selling price, and multiply by 100 Million for the total impact. Lets guess $3k x 10% x 100,000,000 or a simple $30 billion impact in 5 years. Interestingly almost exactly the value over that same 5 year period attributed to POSIX alone. What reasonable conclusions can we draw from this? 1) Standards can (and do) have billions of dollars of impact. 2) this impact can be seen, and felt in both market growth, or lost opportunity 3) the market impact is a win-win or lose-lose situation ----- I will not claim that POSIX gets the full credit, as HP has suggested. X/Open's work, and the procurement policies of the U.S. Government and European Commission, and the visibility though the Media as well as trade organizations like UniForum are all part of the overall equation. (Although add them up and the total impact is probably more than HP had in their estimate.) What is most painful is that we (the I.T. industry) do not recognize the value of these processes, and we fail to invest the resources and do the promotion and education needed to obtain the full benefit of the standardization opportunity. Jim Isaak =========================== Internet Practices Standards Study Group: see: http://www.computer.org/standard/Internet/csipsg.htm ======================== Home Office: 603-465-3131 Voice mail: 508-264-7678 email (external to Digital): j.isaak@computer.org email (internal, in flux): isaak@ljo.dec.com Physical mail: Digital Equipment Corp. AKO2-3/D10 50 Nagog Park Acton, MA 01720-3499 http://stdsbbs.ieee.org/groups/people/jisaak.html ==================================