Software aims at ending erroneous and poorly documented calculations
By Dan Strassberg -- EDN, September 4, 2003
MathSoft, publisher of MathCad, which the company calls the largest selling (based on number of copies sold) mathematical-software application for engineers and scientists, has trademarked the term "calculation management." Before you say "so what?" and complain that EDN shouldn't waste your time with such trivia, read on.
The company points to the fact that nearly all product designs are based on calculations and that hardly any companies keep good records of the formulas they use in their calculations. Therefore, when product problems develop and, among other things, the possibility of recalls and lawsuits arises, designers experience major problems with attempts to reverse-engineer the calculations.
Moreover, the most popular software for performing engineering calculations is the spreadsheet, and MathSoft's research shows that virtually all spreadsheets for this purpose contain at least one error. A key reason for this problem, the company asserts, is that spreadsheets hide the formulas embedded in them, and, when you make the formulas visible, they look almost nothing like the equivalent formulas you would write down with pencil and paper.
Allen Razdow, MathSoft's senior vice president of strategic planning, has written a white paper on the subject, and you can download it at www.mathsoft.com/news. Once you read the paper, you will understand why MathSoft believes that calculation management constitutes an important market that it is uniquely qualified to serve.
Although MathSoft has introduced products that support calculation management, the company's latest product, MathCAD Application Server, offers capabilities that MathSoft says are unavailable in any other commercial-software package. Specifically, with the aid of the Application Server, users who have on their computers no special software other than a standard Web browser without special plug-ins, can view, modify, and manipulate MathCAD worksheets. Mathematical formulas appear in these worksheets as they would if you wrote them with pencil and paper, and you can plug in values to observe their effect. The Application Server transforms the worksheets on the fly from MathCAD .MCD files into interactive HTML files.
The initial market for the Application Server, whose prices start at $13,750, is in large companies whose products depend heavily on engineering calculations. Aerospace, automotive, and pharmaceutical manufacturers are examples, but are far from the only ones.
MathSoft Engineering and Education Inc, 1-617-444-8040, www.mathsoft.com.
