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98
NATO SOFTWARE ENGINEERING CONFERENCE 1968
9. Working Papers
Are all Software commitments for items not in the price book, or variations of these, quoted at an additional cost to the customer, subject to the existence of adequate personnel and facilities for production?
If any software is furnished free as a sales concession, is there a signed acknowledgement attached to the final copy of the contract which states the distribution of cost against individual sales commission, regional sales or manufacturer’s market penetration?
5. PRODUCTION CONTROL
Is the quantity of software to be produced of a manageable size by virtue of control of the number and character of hardware and software configurations which are permitted to be sold?
Given variation possible in store size, number and variety of peripherals functional operations, etc., are all combinatorially possible hardware configurations generated by computer and submitted to
a) Marketing — for reduction of variety with respect to saleability?
b) Engineering — to ensure completeness of interface and interconnections?
c) Software — to ensure software operability for each combination?
d) Product Planning — for performance control (i.e., a salesman might claim that a low price system is saleable but it may not be of sufficient performance with only one tape unit as secondary store)?
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Is this set systematically reduced to a reasonable size (i.e., no more combinations than number of machines planned to sell)?
Is this set then further reduced by matching with a software configurator?
Does this software configurator distinguish between software which is vital to operate the hardware and that which is optional for better system performance or added facility to the user?
Does general management then sign off that the deleted combinations are not to be sold (except with special permission, where software will be sold rather than furnished free)
Does this information now form the basis for the price book?
Are the remaining (official) hardware/software configurations numbered so that a single number in the customer roster will indicate the exact hardware and software with which he is supplied?
Is software designed to minimize the automatic adjustment to variance in configuration?
Does software production have the right of concurrence for software announcements and publicity, with respect to accuracy and feasibility?
Given the possible combinations of hardware units the manufacturer is willing to supply, and the software units to be furnished free for each of these, is the customer told clearly that hardware or software outside of this group is supplied only at special cost?
Is such a policy enforced by a contract review board?
Does this review board also approve contractual commitments and penalties for software?
Is a request for any additional or special software accompanied by a dollar value which is either a) the amount the customer is willing to pay additionally or b) the amount by which salability is enhanced and which Marketing is willing to fund?
Are these categories open to query by salesman to determine the best performing hardware/software configuration to do the customer’s job at minimum cost?
Does Marketing provide an assessment of marketing strategy which may influence the amount or nature of software provided, or rescheduling of production and delivery dates?