From: westes@netcom.com (Will Estes)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.novell,comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc
Subject: Re: ODINSUP Without LAN Manager...Possible?
Date: 14 Apr 92 23:43:34 GMT
Organization: Mail Group

donp@novell.com (don provan) writes:

>In article <ymtjwxa.westes@netcom.com> westes@netcom.com (Will Estes) writes:
>>[Sermon mode on]
>>To Novell: look, if you want ODI to succeed, why don't you simply put
>>NDIS out of its misery and release the ODI specification to the public
>>domain?  By charging exhorbitantly for ODI development kits, you have...


>You may be somewhat out of date about the exhorbitant charge for ODI
>development kits.  While there is an extremely pricey ODI development
>kit ($7,500, last i heard), it includes various test utilities and
>support that make it reasonably priced for the target market: NIC
>manufacturers.  On the other hand, for people who are interested in
>ODI development but aren't going to get rich off of it, there is a
>document only package that sells for something like $100.  Still a lot
>of money and definitely not public domain, but certainly within reason
>for someone preparing to do something as serious as MLID development.
>(Don't quote me, but i've heard of hardship cases where ODI
>development manuals have been sent to deserving but impoverished
>developers gratis.)

Thanks for the update.  I cannot really understand why you charge $7,500
for the SDK.  After all, this is supposed to be a *strategic* technology
for Novell.  You should not be trying to make money or even recover cost
from ODI development.  You should use the technology as a loss-leader,
to entrench your position on the desktop.  Moreover, the lack of direct
protocol support for ODI tells me that the $7,500 price must be
deterring someone from developing with ODI.  Is $7,500 x (some number of
developers less than 100) really enough money to justify keeping ODI
from becoming the a lopsided standard on the desktop?  I suggest you
compare the resulting number against Novell's gross revenues from sales
of other products; it's pretty clear someone needs to re-think ODI
pricing.  It's not a profit center for your company.

Maybe some of the TCP developers who lurk around
here could chip in and tell us why they support NDIS but not ODI?  Either
Novell is not giving you what you need, or else we should be seeing the
ODI versions of your stacks "real soon now." :)

I for one would like to be able to plug my TCP-stack(s) into a
Novell-supported solution for multiple protocol stacks easily.  Easily
is the key word here.  ODINSUP is an ugly child of an ODI-NDIS
marriage.  (I won't speculate which side of that pairing brought the most
ugliness along with it :)  

In any case, I just can't believe that this packet driver-NDIS-ODI
silliness continues to haunt us.  Novell owns the client workstation, so
why can't Novell make ODI pervasive?  If Novell wanted to make ODI the
standard overnight, it seems to me it could do so.  I think Novell owes
it to the end-user to put this packet-driver/NDIS/ODI controversy to
sleep, so we can start building multi-protocol applications, and stop
being full-time MAC layer managers.

Thanks,
Will Estes         Internet: westes@netcom.com 
Newsgroups: comp.sys.novell