B.6.1 Company Description

 SciComp, a start-up firm in Austin, TX, creates gains in productivity and value for its customers by directly harnessing the power of mathematics and scientific computing through automation.  The company provides software synthesis tools that empower their customers to produce complex mathematical software that satisfies their needs without manual computer programming.

SciComp's proprietary software synthesis technology allows engineers and scientists in a wide variety of application areas to state their problems in a concise and easy-to-learn language called ASPEN (algorithm specification notation).  From their brief ASPEN specifications, SciComp's synthesis technology tools generate thousands of lines of C or Fortran code.  SciComp has incorporated this technology into SciFinance.  SciFinance is a software system that automates the pricing of complex derivative and option structures.  Users briefly specify their models in precise financial and mathematical terms.  Then SciFinance generates the C code that implements the user's specifications.  Essentially, it automates various parts of a traditionally labor-intensive production process.  SciComp also supports strategic partnering to develop new distribution channels, markets, and application areas.

B.6.2 Technology Description

Goals of the ATP Project

Based on the funding that they received from the ATP, SciComp hoped to develop a technology to automatically synthesize computer code for scientific applications from high-level specifications.  The main focus of the ATP project was to make the development of difficult but routine pieces of code commonplace and simple.

Technical Accomplishments

SciComp was able to develop a high-level specification language based on the research that they conducted under the ATP award.  SciComp developed the methods, interfaces, and performance templates needed for the algorithms used in their products.  They created an extensible specification language and developed a practical synthesis technology that worked more quickly and improved productivity ten-fold for companies using their products.  All of the innovations developed by SciComp under the ATP award are incorporated in the company's SciFinance product.

Customer Use of the Products

After purchasing SciFinance, customers can specify the type of code they need to solve a particular problem.  They enter the specifications (e.g., what needs to be solved, what computer language, how many iterations), and SciFinance automatically generates the code to fit into their existing computer system.  This code is essentially cut and pasted into their existing software source code and is ready to compile and use.  SciXL is another product that incorporates ATP-funded technology.  It is similar to SciFinance, but it has a different licensing structure because it was developed with a third party.  Thus, we treat it separately in our benefits estimation. 

Customers using these products can now quickly develop complex analytical models so that staff can work on other critical analytic tasks.  Customers also benefit by receiving consistent, high-quality code in a fraction of the time it would have taken to develop their code independently. 

Future Products

SciComp is planning on expanding the technology that they have developed to numerous other potential applications.  Any application that requires in-depth and intense numerical modeling is a potential market for SciComp.  For example, automobile design, development of electronics, chemistry, civil engineering, mining, physics, education, and the military are all activities and sectors that could benefit from using the technology.  However, SciComp has yet to develop specific applications for these sectors.

B.6.3 Project Performance

In this section, we estimate economic performance measures for the ATP-funded SciComp project.  We gathered information from Dr. Elaine Kant, the firm's founder and project principal investigator,  on product life spans, actual and projected sales, and total project costs.  From this information, we derived demand curves for each product sold during their expected lives, and used these to estimate consumer and producer surplus and R&D expenditures.  Based on these estimates, we calculated the net present value, the benefit-cost ratio, and the internal rate of return for the software project. 

Competing Technologies

According to SciComp, there are no direct competitors to the suite of products they have developed based on the ATP technology.  Although there are numerous ways to develop code for a specific project or application, few of them have been automated, and none in the application area that SciComp is addressing.  Because of its automation, the suite of SciComp products is a radical departure from previous products.

R&D Expenditures for the Technology

ATP contributed a little more than $1,900,000 during the 1995 to 1997 period.  SciComp, as a small firm, could only provide about $255,000 during that same time frame.  Once the commercial potential of their technology became apparent, SciComp was able to attract external funding of $1,000,000, which aided them in launching the products discussed above. 

Estimation of Performance Measures

To estimate the consumer and producer surplus benefits, we assumed that the marginal costs are zero, and the only costs that are important are the R&D expenditures.  SciFinance is downloaded from a Web site, so there are very little additional marginal costs associated with getting the product to the consumer.

We first generated a per-year consumer and producer surplus benefit from the technology.  R&D expenditures and benefits were adjusted to 2000 dollars to remove effects of inflation.  We estimated the benefit-cost ratio, net present value, and internal rate of return and present them in the table below.

B.6.4 Qualitative Benefits Attributable to ATP

General Impacts of ATP Funding on the Company

SciComp states that without the ATP funds, it would have been impossible for the company to develop its technology and produce these products.  The company simply lacked the resources and was unable to raise venture capital due to the 7-year lag between initial investment in the technology and the time they would be able to generate positive economic returns from investment.

General Impacts of ATP Funding on the Market

SciComp believes the CBSD market would have developed without the ATP investment, but would have been substantially delayed.  SciComp was uncertain about the extent of the delay but thought the delay in developing the overall component-based market would have been substantial.

Return to Table of Contents or go to next section in Appendix B.

Date created: December 3, 2002
Last updated: August 2, 2005

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