Artificial Intelligence
... AI market. A few major computer companies, such as DEC, Texas Instruments and Xerox, have been aggressively pursuing the market. The Frost & Sullivan report gives competitive profiles of the major players in this market. The AI industry is characterized by a web of cooperative marketing and development agreements. Software and hardware vendors seek to develop working relationships allowing them to provide complete AI packages. Some U.S. firms--such as Boeing, Ford, General Motors, and Lockheed--have become investors or part owners in AI companies. AI products include both hardware and software. AI software includes languages, applications packages, and development tools, with development tools the largest single category of AI software products. The applications segment is the least developed but, according to Frost & Sullivan, offers the greatest potential. Applications packages will experience healthy growth even as AI technology merges with traditional software. Languages include three main categories used in the development of AI applications and development tools: Lisp, Prolog, and Other. Lisp is the most common language used in AI, accounting for 58% of revenues for AI languages sold by third party vendors. Hardware includes dedicated symbolic processors (Lisp machines) and general-purpose workstations that use AI software and work in AI environments. The advantages of Lisp machines are their speed and efficiency in executing symbolic code, their advanced developed interfaces for constructing application programs, and their ability to perform highly intensive processing without tying up mainframe resources. AI workstations, as general purpose systems, are able to perform both symbolic and numeric processing, thus offering flexibility that dedicated machines cannot match. Prices of technical workstations are falling and shipments are rising. This has resulted in increased revenues for...