Re: It costs how much?!!?!

[Nigel Wade <nmw(at)ion.le.ac.uk>]

Randall Skelton wrote:
> 
> Bill's message seems points to a growing trend which RSI had best be
> concerned about-- IDL is not the only programming tool available these
> days:  Wavemetrics IGOR, Mathworks MATLAB, and a few others are all
> gaining ground and cost a fraction of what RSI charges for IDL!
> 
> If I didn't have access to a department site license for IDL I'd never
> have begun using it.  As a grad student myself I am all for RSI reducing
> the cost of single licenses to students!  I own a laptop which I take with
> me on 'vacations' and field experiments and it is frustrating not to be
> able to 'show off' my IDL plots at conferences or simply display my
> results on the road.  Forget about the 'crippled version' though, I
> develop both in C and IDL and it is essential that I can use both of these
> tools together on my desktop computer and my laptop.

Have you tried asking?

In the past, whenever I asked FPS (the previous supplier of IDL in the
UK)
for a temporary license to use IDL away from our license manager there
was 
never a problem. All they ever asked was how long I required it for.
I haven't tried again since they became RSI (UK) but I would hope the 
situation hasn't changed.

I once asked Cambridge Control (who used to supply MATLAB) the same
question
and got a very different answer.

If you have a site license you should be able to get an individual
license
for your laptop anyway.

> 
> I know people have been promoting the use of Matlab around my department
> as well.  By coincidence, I contacted the Mathworks sales department about
> a single license for my laptop... Simply put: I need to be able to plot
> results in the field and the cost of IDL is prohibitive.  I contacted RSI
> also and I've been told there will be an announcement early in the new
> year regarding OS support and pricing.  I'll give them until the
> end of February.

Are you sure your laptop can take enough memory to run MATLAB?

Also, don't forget to add in the extra cost of each of the additional
toolboxes MATLAB requires to make it a usable product.



-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------
Nigel Wade, System Administrator, Space Plasma Physics Group,
            University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK 
E-mail :    nmw@ion.le.ac.uk 
Phone :     +44 (0)116 2523568, Fax : +44 (0)116 2523555