Path: news.mathworks.com!not-for-mail
From: "Hui " <hui@notlikely.com>
Newsgroups: comp.soft-sys.matlab
Subject: Re: MATLAB Student Version R2008a?
Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2008 00:04:02 +0000 (UTC)
Organization: Macquarie University
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From my reading D. Ismay&#8217;s post, I suspect that he concurs 
with my original self-positioning as a &#8220;lowly student&#8221; (see 
the first message in this topic).

Regardless, I don&#8217;t recall suggesting that students &#8220;should 
somehow automatically elevate their status above that of 
full-pay, professional customers&#8221;. Undoubtedly, it is the 
customers from industry, which derive high commercial value 
from their use of MATLAB, that rightfully expect and demand 
a superior level of *personal* service and support, and 
they are willing to pay a premium price for it. Inevitably, 
it is these profitable customers which lend MathWorks the 
ability to offer academia a product which has high 
intellectual value at a price which is affordable by 
students and department budgets.

I have also failed to find an official MathWorks example of 
D. Ismay&#8217;s assertion that the MATLAB Student Version 
is &#8220;lite&#8221;. Certainly, the &#8220;MATLAB & Simulink Student 
Version fact sheet&#8221; at 
http://www.mathworks.com/academia/student_version/techkit_co
nf.html makes no mention of any inherent limitation. But, 
of course, there actually are limitations. Only a subset of 
the MathWorks add-on products (those deemed to be as 
suitable for academic use) are available for the Student 
Version. If you wish to interface MATLAB to the outside 
world, you can either forget it or buy the full industrial 
version of everything. (see note 1 at end)

I guess what got D. Ismay&#8217;s goat was my &#8220;petulant&#8221; whining 
and [unsubstantiated] assertions, which were both lacking 
in &#8220;reason [and] justification&#8221;. Perhaps so. Should I have 
been submitting a paper Logic 101, I would not have 
expected a good grade.

I prefer to think of my previous message as an impassioned 
plea to MathWorks for the fair treatment of students and 
academia in general. As Nasser Abbasi so clearly describes 
is his recent post to this topic (discovered while I write 
this response), there are other serious software options to 
consider. Wolfram Research offers academia a suitably 
priced (and arguably superior) product which is both 
identical in function to the industrial version and almost 
identical in the support and service provided.

I suspect that MathWorks, comfortable with its dominance of 
a number of academic disciplines, lacks the motivation to 
look deeply into desires and expectations of this market. 
We all know of another very large software firm with a 
monopoly on certain market segments which has been accused 
of a similar casual arrogance.

It&#8217;s sad, really. The provision of &#8220;e&#8221; support and service 
(instant software updates, etc.) is extremely cheap, yet 
still quite acceptable to students and most facility. How 
can MathWorks find itself so very much behind the 
competition in this regard?

I will conclude by saying that I have travelled through 
feelings of denial (it can&#8217;t be true), dismay (no R2008a!) 
and rage (I&#8217;ve wasted my money). But there will be no 
further &#8220;weeping or whining&#8221; from me.

Kind regards,

Hui

1. Wolfram Research provides standard libraries, plus 
extensive documentation and samples, for interfacing 
Mathematica to the outside world, whether your preference 
is C++, Java or .NET. And, yes, this is included with 
the &#8220;for Students&#8221; version.