Python Popularity: Questions and Comments

[Cameron Laird]

In article <a0hi10$o40$1 at serv1.iunet.it>, Alex Martelli <aleax at aleax.it> wrote:
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>in it for them?  Can you even FIND OUT what programming
>languages are in fact used by the various departments
>and fiefs of these large organizations?
Sometimes.  Let me warn the inexperienced,
though:  even when you think you know the
answer--because, for example, the company
president has chosen to assert a technical
proposition like, "Java helped us
blah-blah"--there's no guarantee that the
public information corresponds to the
inside reality.  I have ABUNDANT evidence
on this score.  Organizations often "dis-
inform", and at least as often, they have
poor collective intelligence about their
own behavior.
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>This tells us nothing about marketing _technologies_
>as opposed to products and services.  In that field,
>Sun's very successful efforts at marketing Java may
>be more instructive.  But, who has a billion dollars
>available to throw at the task?  And how to they plan
>to recoup the investment?  Sun has presumably judged
>that opposing Microsoft's dominance has huge strategic
>value for them: they don't make money directly out of
>Java (not, by far, enough to make the huge marketing
>investments profitable), but apparently they think
>they're getting value for money through other revenue
>channels.  What huge firm[s] might possibly make a
>similar decision in the case of Python?  And why?
An intriguing question, to which we per-
haps shall return later.
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-- 

Cameron Laird <Cameron at Lairds.com>
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html