From: Larry Seamer (larry@athena.unm.edu)
Date: Fri Jul 22 1994 - 15:12:34 EST
The time has come the walrus said to speak of many things of shoes and ships and sealling wax of cabbages and kings of why the B-D is giving not and whether a tractor sings. I finally feel philosophical enough to impose some of my thoughts regarding the recent B-D software debate on my colleagues. I use B-D in this discussion as a paradigm for all flow manufacturers and biotech companies. Many of the arguments I've read on this network seem to reflect a disdain for business in academia. In other words, the notion exists that a profit motive is less than honorable and often interferes with legitimate scientific inquiry. I contend that corporate profit is in the best interest of academic science. B-D makes money by selling cytometers, not software. Software sales can not support the overhead necessary to build the hardware. Every company tries to get a "leg-up" on their competition with innovation, low price, more features, etc. We are the beneficiaries of this competition. I concede B-D's point, giving away their 'leg-up' will in the end be counterproductive to B-D and to those of us who rely on B-D. If B-D does not make money, they go away and we all build Cytomuts. I am not very handy, so, this institution would probably be flow-less if someone did not sell cytometers. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is fodder for future discussions. Many of us have been in this field long enough to remember when our monoclonal antibodies were obtained by making them ourselves or begging them from colleagues. Supplies of antibodies were limited, quality was inconsistent, standardization was poor and support was nonexistent. Also, new antibodies were slow in appearing. Thankfully, it is profitable to sell monoclonal antibodies and the research which requires them has flourished. One final point on software. As some have noted in past messages, the best software has come from independent providers (Verity, Phoenix, TrueFacts, TechTeam, etc). If software is given away, it will no longer be feasible to sell it and those who make a living by providing us with innovative and useful software will go the way of the Dodo. We will be left with only those who are willing to give it away or B-D, Coulter and Ortho. As those companies have argued, they do not make money on software. Therefore, it is unreasonable to think that we can count on the flow manufacturers to meet our analysis needs. That leaves only our colleagues who are willing to give it away as a source new software. I hope the parallel to monoclonal antibodies is apparent.
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