Newsgroups: comp.lang.apl
Path: watmath!watserv2.uwaterloo.ca!watserv1!LIEBTAG@STLVM20.VNET.IBM.COM
From: "David Liebtag" <LIEBTAG@STLVM20.VNET.IBM.COM>
Subject: IBM Support of APL
Message-ID: <C5HLoD.IKB@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>
Originator: daemon@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca
Sender: news@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1993 18:32:44 GMT

Volker Brandt,

I would like to comment on your remark that you believe there is
some truth to the statement that IBM doesn't support APL.  Our
response to remarks like this for the last couple of years has
been to cite the letters stating the APL2 is IBM's strategic
interactive language.  I'd like to give a little more information
from an insider's point of view.

It is certainly true that at some times in the last decade or so,
management at IBM has been less than enthusiastic about APL.  If
the truth were known, people in APL development have at times
felt like they were struggling to retain funding for the product.
Of course, we felt this was pretty dumb since a lot of IBM
itself runs on APL2 and we'd be in deep hooey if it ever went
away.

Today however, the story is quite different.

Within the last couple of years, management has realized that APL2
is really a good product for them from a business point of view.
We bring in some significant revenue and our costs are quite low
(we've got a fairly small self-contained team.)  In fact, in
many cases, management is now pointing to the APL group as an
example of how to run a product development team.  Rather than
not supporting us, they are pushing us to do better and pushing
other groups to do as well as we do.

Now this is not to say that we don't have our problems.  The
marketing groups haven't quite caught on to our story yet.
For example, ordering the APL2/PC product is still far too
difficult.  However, we're working on the whole problem
of getting our products and services available to you.  We
have good management support with this effort too.

Personally, I am more confident of the management support for
APL right now than I have ever felt about management support
for APL or any other project I've ever worked within IBM.

Now, the trick is to exploit it and build you some terrific
new products and releases of old ones.


Regards,
David Liebtag
