SOFTWARE PRICING FOR CLUSTERS

[Dean Johnson]

On Wed, 2002-07-24 at 11:49, Jim Fraser wrote:
> With regard to scientific software pricing for clusters, what do you guys
> consider reasonable model for pricing?  Lets say the basic price for some
> given software is 50K for 1 CPU. What do you think is reasonable for
> increasing numbers of CPUs.
> 
> NCPU's     COST $
> 1-4        50K
> 4-16
> 17-32
> 32-64
> 64-128
> 128-256
> 256+
> 

IMHO, there are TONS of factors that would go into the pricing scheme.
Here are some various of the points that I can think of off the top of
my head:

	* Does it scale well? If you get nothing beyond say 4 cpus,
	  you should probably not price it much higher.

	* What machines are going to be in the cluster? For instance,
	  a cluster of O3K would be quite a bit less cost-sensitive
	  than a cluster of white box athlons.

	* What kind of market presence does the product have? If you 
	  have a unique and really valuable product, you can charge 
	  more.

	* What value is derived from using your product?

	* What is your competition charging?

	* Who buys your product? Commercial customers are likely
	  more willing to pay more than educational customers.

Okay, thats enough rambling.

	-Dean