They were a mistake, although we thought they could be very useful. They turned out to be too difficult to program for realistic programmes. There is no software industry in high-performance computing either, claimed Fox. There are a few individual companies like NAG, Pallas, Genias, the Portland Group, but not enough to talk of an industry. The field has a history of building its own software, even when there is better software on the market.
People just prefer to build their own.
He advises software companies to work in a broader market and not develop solely for the technical computing market. Perhaps not, see the interview with Tony Hey, elsewhere in this issue.