Value-Added Services with webMathematica

Lars Hohmuth
Wolfram Research, Inc.
larsh@wolfram.com

Abstract

webMathematica opens up exciting new possibilities for Mathematica developers. For example, it is now possible to sell or rent Mathematica services, or to build specialized web sites that allow subscribers to do highly advanced calculations through a standard web interface.

What can one do with webMathematica?

Deploy calculators, problem solvers, and other functionality over the web

Integrate computation into enterprise infrastructure

Deliver specialized calculations to premium customers

Sell or rent value-added subscription services

Publish interactive courseware, textbooks, papers, and book supplements over the web

The standard license configurations

webMathematica comes in two standard license configurations: webMathematica Professional and webMathematica Amateur. Depending on your plans, either one might be adequate for your business plan.

The license agreements and the licensing table give more information.

webMathematica Professional

webMathematica Professional is the appropriate license for most value-added services. It allows you to charge for use, limit access to your site and does not require you to display banners or acknowledge Wolfram Research.

License restrictions

webMathematica Professional has only two major license restrictions:

No arbitrary, open ended open ended calculation requests.

According to the webMathematica license agreement:

You may not create a Site in which the User can type in arbitrary, open-ended calculation requests, in Mathematica syntax or in any other syntax or means of specification, and have those requests carried out by webMathematica. In addition, you may not aggregate multiple Sites with incremental functionality in order to recreate the Mathematica user experience or any significant portion thereof. In other words, you may not offer your Users through multiple Sites a level of functionality which would violate this Agreement if offered through a single Site. In no event will you allow Users to bypass such restrictions or otherwise access Mathematica directly.

No replication of the Mathematica "look and feel".

You may not replicate, in whole or in part,  the “look and feel” of Mathematica with your Interface. In other words, your Interface cannot be composed of a combination of visual, design or functional elements which could reasonably be expected to cause confusion between Mathematica and your Interface among Users of your Site. The criteria for assessing compliance with this restriction will be set and applied at our sole discretion. We agree to exercise that discretion reasonably.

What does this mean?

Basically what it says. You are free to build added value computations with webMathematica Professional. The emphasis is on added value, just reselling Mathematica features and functionality is not allowed under this license. 
For example, a site that allows visitors direct,or thinly veiled access to Mathematica functions like Integrate, NDSolve, Solve and similar functions is not in compliance with the license agreement. 
A site that uses these functions to solve specific problems is entirely admissible.

Examples:

A site that offers direct command line access to Mathematica is not allowed. Nor is a site that provides just a thin layer to mask direct command line access to Mathematica. For example a site that instead of having Integrate[text] has \(TraditionalForm\`∫\_□\%□ □ d□\)with the □ being simple entry fields is not allowed.

Sites such as www.calc101.com, www.simplyengineering.com and AnalyticCycling. com are examples of sites that have added value and are covered by the license agreement.

An engineering calculator at www.simplyengineering.com

webMathematica Amateur

webMathematica Amateur is much more restricted and in most cases unsuitable for commercial applications.

License restrictions

webMathematica Amateur comes with the following additional license restrictions:

The site has to be freely accessible over the internet
	The site has to be available free of charge
	The site must display webMathematica banners

Other license options

If the two standard license configurations do not work for your business plan, talk to us.

Some ideas

Reselling Mathematica services

This is one of the most common suggestions for webMathematica businesses we get. Basically, individuals or companies want to make Mathematica itself, or significant parts of it, available over the internet or corporate intranets.
We are happy to discuss this option, but be aware that we have to be able to recover the lost sales of Mathematica this might cause us and that there are technical obstacles.

Our price points will depend on a lot of parameters, some of which are:
	•How many customers will have access to the service?
	•How much functionality are they allowed to use?
	•Who are these customers (students, professionals, hobbyists)?
	•How will the customers be charged (subscription, pay-per-calculations, pay-per-time)?
	
As a general rule of thumb, we would probably have to charge the amount we would get out of an equally large site license for a subscription service. Also keep in mind that there are currently no good payment systems for pay-per-use models.

Reselling webMathematica

Another potential business model is hosting webMathematica sites. An example of this kind of service is www.hostsrv.com. The price point per webMathematica process will be determined much like in the preceding example. One additional fact to keep in mind is that the host will be responsible for license compliance on his/her entire site.

What are the fixed costs for a webMathematica site?

This is very hard to determine in general. Items you will want to keep in mind are:
	•Hardware or colocation costs
	•Bandwidth
	•Support
	•Payment
	•Cost of webMathematica licenses

Typically, you will want to start out small and only expand once you have capacity problems. Keep in mind the recent very public failures of many ASP, colocating and web hosting services.

What is Wolfram Research looking for?

Is the business plan viable?

The first thing we will look at is if our potential partner will be able to sustain a business. This covers both the projected revenue as well as the fixed cost and personnel issues.

Does the business plan provide for additional revenue for Wolfram Research?

The second consideration is that we want to at least cover our costs and generate more revenue than we loose by not selling our products to the people who use the webMathematica site instead.

What kind of marketing and promotional benefits does Wolfram Research get out of this project?

Wolfram Research will occasionally waive some of the license fees we can get equivalent marketing value out of a cooperation. This is a type of arrangement we have, with Simplyengineering, eFunda and a number of other sites that are currently live or which will come online in the near future. We will assess the marketing value roughly by determining how much money we would have to spend to get similar exposure ourselves.

Is the project "interesting"?

Wolfram Research has a long tradition of giving grants to interesting projects and organizations. If you have one idea you think we should sponsor, contact us.

Contact

Please direct inquiries to:
	Alan Hennigman
	Business Development
	Wolfram Research, Inc.
	100 Trade Center Drive
	Champaign, IL 61820
	USA
	alanh@wolfram.com