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\'3;↓Q\CSTANFORD UNIVERSITY
\F3\CSTANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305
\F4



ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LABORATORY\←L\-R\/'7;\+R\→.\→S   Telephone:
COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT\←S\→.415-497-4430
\F0\C11 November 1974




William Massy
Vice-Provost, Research
Building 10
Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305

Dear Bill:

\J	I think your article in \F1Science\F0 is unduly sympathetic to
computation center directors, especially ours.  There is nothing in it
which mentions the possibility that a computation center may grow in
accordance with Parkinson's law and may institute a monopoly in order
to protect this position.  Stanford's has certainly done this.  A major
advantage of minicomputers is not an advantage in machine cost-performance,
but is the fact that all the personnel supporting the machine are
either employees of the machine's principal user or are competing for his
fee-for-service business.  SCIP has 300 employees who contribute most of
its cost, almost all users have no idea how many there are or whether their
activities are cost-effective from his point of view.  There are enormous
differences in the cost-effectiveness of university computation centers
as various comparisons by Stanford faculty have shown, and Stanford's
is one of the most expensive.\.

\←L\→S\←R\-L\/'2;\+L\→L
Sincerely yours,





John McCarthy
Director, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Computer Science Department
\←S\→L
JMC:pw
massy.le1[let,jmc]:SU-AI