SOFTWARE PRICING FOR CLUSTERS

[Chai Mee Joon]

Hi,


Also these factors:

        * Does your 'scientific software' require ALOT of consulting work ?

        * what kind of support or solution is included ?

        * What kind of clustering technology does it use ?

        * For US$50k, does it include the hardware as well ?

        * What kind of hardware is used (Cray, IBM xSeries ?)

        * Is the target a general purpose cpu (ia32/66, sparc, alpha, mips)
          or a custom fpga with its own instruction set/circuits ?


Cheers,

Chai Mee Joon

http://cluster.homelinux.net




> 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.
>