Re: Kodak buys RSI!!

[davidf(at)dfanning.com (David Fanning)]

Pete Riley (uk2@linuxfan.com) is going to get us into it when
he writes:

> What's the word on the street? This is news to me. A couple of questions:
> 
> 1. Why does Kodak want RSI?

I'm guessing they will find it much easier to sell their
imaging hardware if they have decent software to go with
it. We all know that hardware is pretty much, well, hardware
without something to make those numbers sing. :-)

> 2. Given the answer to 1., what does this *really* mean for the future of
> IDL?

Who knows? I'm pretty sure no one at RSI knows, and
Kodak probably doesn't have any idea. I'm guessing that
Kodak is probably more interested in ENVI than they are
in IDL, but I suspect they probably realize that their
customers will want both. A nice menu-based system with
lots of built-in tools for image analysis and visualization,
but a language too for the researchers who prefer to roll
their own. 

I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see IDL and ENVI become
two sides of the same coin, with similar capability and
functionality, but with two different ways of working with
the imaging data. I think we are probably safe in assuming
IDL will become less a tool for all people, and will become
more focused on image processing. That's a boon for the imaging
folks, surely, but may mean something else to folks less interested
in imaging. 

And I wouldn't be at all surprised to see tools like
VIP and ION dropped pretty quickly. I just don't see 
how they fit into "Kodak" at all.
 
> I wonder whether we can get a refund on our maintainance contracts?

Why don't you wait until after you get IDL 5.4. I
figure that will be around at least for a little while. :-)

Cheers,

David

-- 
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting
Phone: 970-221-0438 E-Mail: davidf@dfanning.com
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Toll-Free IDL Book Orders: 1-888-461-0155