| DoD | Commercial Sector |
| Buy one | Sell many |
| Long-term planning precludes quick reaction | Quick reaction to market forces |
| Limited market | Large market |
| Fixed profits | Large profit potential |
| Failures cost lives | Failures cost money |
Source: Nyberg, Karl presentation quoting Gensler, “The Defense Industry” .and Aharonian, Greg, “Microeconomic Definitions for Ada Summit”, 1994.
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From the Script: SLIDE 19 - Why C++ for Industry?
There are deeper reasons why C++ has enjoyed a favored status in private industry. One of them is the differences between the DOD mindset and the industry mindset: Just like any other software customer, the DOD wants maximum flexibility and vendor-independence; the commercial industry wants to lock its clients into using only their products.
DOD wants to buy one system; the commercial sector wants to sell many.
DOD must plan for the long term, which precludes quick reactions to market forces; the commercial sector must react quickly to survive.
The DOD market is a limited market; the commercial sector looks to a large market.
The profit picture is fixed in the DOD market; the commercial sector looks for large profit potential.
In the DOD world, failures cost lives or national destinies; in the commercial sector failures cost money. Industries with a requirement for reliability, though, use Ada extensively.
By its very nature, then, C++ appealed to the commercial sector. Ada 83 was attractive to the DOD-type project engineers.