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In article <1992Apr10.052251.6145@athena.mit.edu>
jgshir@athena.mit.edu (John G Shirlaw) writes:

>Steve jobs and NeXT in general use the phrase "Mission Critical App" a lot as
>they see it as there main advantage

>I always have problems with deciding quite what this phrase actually means...
>any one got a good example eplanation and/or examples...preferably ones that
>don't include the financial sector and or DTP.

No answer to your question, but I noticed on television the
other night that Unisys is also using the phrase
"mission-critical" in their ads.

-- 
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson
NeXTmail w/attachments: anderson@yak.macc.wisc.edu  Bitnet: anderson@wiscmacc
Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888

In article <1992Apr10.052251.6145@athena.mit.edu> jgshir@athena.mit.edu (John G  
Shirlaw) writes:
| Steve jobs and NeXT in general use the phrase "Mission Critical App" a lot as
| they see it as there main advantage
| 
| I always have problems with deciding quite what this phrase actually means...
| any one got a good example eplanation and/or examples...preferably ones that
| don't include the financial sector and or DTP.

I think of it as meaning those specialized, "quick prototyping"
applications that come up in various areas.  One example from the
microprocessor design business is specialized simulators for
testing the performance tradeoffs of various ideas. 

--
	Tim Olson
	Advanced Micro Devices
	tim@amd.com

jgshir@athena.mit.edu (John G Shirlaw) writes:
> Steve jobs and NeXT in general use the phrase "Mission Critical App" 
> a lot as they see it as their main advantage
> 
> I always have problems with deciding quite what this phrase actually
> means... any one got a good example eplanation and/or examples... 
> preferably ones that don't include the financial sector and or DTP.

I'd think "Mission-critical" apps are those which your company does not want  
to trust to other people.  The company has a very specific idea of an app  
that matches the way that company does business, in order to give the  
company a competitive edge in that business.  They don't want to pick up a  
copy of some generic "Apps-Are-Us" application and try to fit it into their  
specific needs.  They want complete and total control over the app, because  
the success of the company depends on the competitive advantage the app will  
give them.

--
Garance Alistair Drosehn     =     gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu
ITS Systems Programmer            (handles NeXT-type mail)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute;           Troy NY    USA

In article <ds5t98=@rpi.edu> gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu (Garance A. Drosehn) writes:
>jgshir@athena.mit.edu (John G Shirlaw) writes:
>> Steve jobs and NeXT in general use the phrase "Mission Critical App" 
>> a lot as they see it as their main advantage
>> 
>> I always have problems with deciding quite what this phrase actually
>> means... any one got a good example eplanation and/or examples... 
>> preferably ones that don't include the financial sector and or DTP.
>
>I'd think "Mission-critical" apps are those which your company does not want  
>to trust to other people.  The company has a very specific idea of an app  
>that matches the way that company does business, in order to give the  
>company a competitive edge in that business.  They don't want to pick up a  
>copy of some generic "Apps-Are-Us" application and try to fit it into their  
>specific needs.  They want complete and total control over the app, because  
>the success of the company depends on the competitive advantage the app will  
>give them.

In other words, a "mission-critical app" is an application that is
critical to the company's mission.

-mark
--
Mark Meuer   <><   | Bio-Medical Design Group |   meuer@geom.umn.edu
Did you hear that Stephen King and Christian author Frank Paretti are 
joining their talents to write a horror novel about small animals studying to
become ordained Catholic priests?  The book will be called "Pet Seminary."

John G Shirlaw writes
> Steve jobs and NeXT in general use the phrase "Mission Critical App" 
[...]
> any one got a good example eplanation and/or examples...preferably ones  
that
> don't include the financial sector and or DTP.


Any program which is organization-specific and whose timely creation is  
important is a "Mission Critical App" (MCA).

John G Shirlaw writes
> Steve Jobs and NeXT in general use the phrase "Mission Critical App" a lot as
> they see it as there main advantage
> 
> I always have problems with deciding quite what this phrase actually means...
> any one got a good example explanation and/or examples...preferably ones that
> don't include the financial sector and or DTP.

Excuse me for slinging lingo, but it all sort of fits together. Since my  
business (along with 7000 close buddies here at TRW) is mission critical  
applications, I think I can answer this. Take a deep breath ...

The government refers to a project focused on an end goal or an established  
process as a mission. Recall NASA Mission Control and the Apollo Moon Mission.  
I think NeXT picked up this phrase from the government. Mission critical  
applications are those that are sort of unique to the mission at hand, and are  
(of course) critical to it's success.

In the days before VisiCalc and the big commercial software industry,  
practically all end-user software was a) system software or b) mission-specific  
software. Today commercial software is a big volume. The old mission-specific,  
semi-custom or completely custom applications have to be distinguished. They  
used to be just called 'applications'.

Two candidate names are 'custom applications' and 'mission critical  
applications' ... more or less referring to the same things. The former name  
emphasizes the process through which the application is produced (vs. a  
commercial application - one that is bought and used without further paying a  
software developer). The latter name emphasizes the importance of the  
application to the end-user/organization (vs. something merely helpful or  
entertaining).

So NeXT is referring to applications that are not bought and used, but that are  
developed unique and specific to a mission at hand. The value of NeXTstep is  
that applications can be built much faster, provided the right objects and kits  
are available and a skilled developer is on the job.

To emphasize the value of this difference in development time NeXT uses  
'mission critical application'. Clearly your mission suffers if you don't have  
*that* application! If they used the term 'custom application' then a lot of  
potential customers would have to think about time, money, and need; and arrive  
at the time-is-critical equation. Not much thought, but remember what  
positioning and marketing are really all about - making it easy to make the  
right decision for you. If your application is critical to your mission then  
NeXT might just be the right approach. If compatability with already purchased  
and used equipment (or other considerations) are more important than getting  
the application done then NeXT might not be right.

NeXT did not invent a new term or a new type of application - they are just  
positioning their marketing so some people can more easily decide that NeXT is  
the right computer for their needs. My personal opinion: I wish there was a  
better name for the same positioning, but the positioning is the correct one  
for NeXT's value relative to the options in the marketplace.

Mark R. Thomsen

anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) writes:


>In article <1992Apr10.052251.6145@athena.mit.edu>
>jgshir@athena.mit.edu (John G Shirlaw) writes:

>>Steve jobs and NeXT in general use the phrase "Mission Critical App" a lot as
>>they see it as there main advantage

>>I always have problems with deciding quite what this phrase actually means...
>>any one got a good example eplanation and/or examples...preferably ones that
>>don't include the financial sector and or DTP.

>No answer to your question, but I noticed on television the
>other night that Unisys is also using the phrase
>"mission-critical" in their ads.

>-- 
>Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
>Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson
>NeXTmail w/attachments: anderson@yak.macc.wisc.edu  Bitnet: anderson@wiscmacc
>Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888

Well, I'd say "mission-critical" has nothing particular to do with the
financial sector, DTP, or any other business sector or computing activity.
It has to do with anything that a company would deem critical to what
it does (i.e. its "mission").  Mission-critical apps are software that
assist in those critical activities.  Fairly reasonable?  Well, you
said an example.

I work for a furniture sales company.  With strokes from a very large
brush, you could paint a picture that showed two major mission-critical
aspects of our Information Systems: managing the flow of inventory,
and processing the results of sales activities.

Within these two IS segments is room for lots of mission-critical custom
apps, for example in the sales area.  Executive will want to know all
sorts of weird and wonderful things about who sold what where and to whom.
We spend a lot of time coming up with custom ad-hoc reporting to satisfy
all sorts of information needs in the sales analysis area, and more time
turning requests down because we don't have the personpower to deal with
them.  So for us, a mission-critical custom app might be something that
looked like this:

Attach to our Oracle database and grab raw information about sales
activity.  Display in slices of a basic 3D cube with sales location along
one axis, time along another, and product along a third.  For any slice
of the cube displayed, show quantity of units sold, dollar amount sold,
and margin; summarize along each of the two axes shown on the slice.
Allow dynamic drill up & down in the detail along each axis.  E.g. sales
location could vary from region within corporation, to province within
region, to store within province, to salesperson within store; time could
vary from month with the last 12 months, to day within the last month;
product could vary from major group within product group, to minor group
within major group, to category within minor group, to item within category.

Now, we could spend incredible time developing an X Window application
that did this.  Or we could spend a lot less time doing a NeXTstep app
that would do it (if we had any NeXTs, which we don't and probably
won't).  Or we could do something we like even better, and get a good
shrinkwrapped tool that can handle the guts of the work, and integrate
it with our system (for any Improv fans, the description of my vaporapp
will sound familiar).

We've done the latter in a way.  We have a PC (yes, I mean IBM clone,
386) package called Powerplay which can do the multi-dimensional stuff.
But getting the data into it involves running flat reports, stripping
data from them, transferring them to our mainframe, downloading them to
a PC, then importing them into Powerplay and building the view (which
can take time).  When you combine this process with the fact that the
initial sales activity reports that drive it are run off sales history
summary data that takes a minimum of three days for our retail system to
generate, you may be able to perceive why we would prefer to provide a
more real-time solution that could summarize and view sales activity
data "online".

Well, where NeXT is trying to focus is on the areas where you don't have
the convenience of going with an existing tool to do your work for you.
Or if you do, you require substantial support & integration work to build
stuff around it (e.g. the Improv API could be used to make Improv an
engine for a custom app).  Because the app is "critical", you can't
turn it down due to shortage of personpower, and you can't take a year
to build, test and deploy it.  It would also be nice if fast development
also meant fast enhancement later.  I dunno about anybody else, but our
executive sometimes seem to change their requirements daily.  :~)
-- 
Royce Howland   --   Everything is IMHO   |  "I can eat enormous quantities
royce@splunge.uucp        (NeXTMail OK)   |   of ice-cream without being sick,
or royce%splunge@atlantis.uucp            |   Mrs. S-C-U-M."  --Mr. Neutron
or alberta!atlantis!splunge!royce or ...  |   C86Net: Mr._Neutron@RT.Alta