@HEADLINE = Software Salaries: How do you stack up?

@BYLINE = by Joe Smith

How much your software professionals are paid is a function of many 
variables, and a subject of considerable interest to your organization.

@SUBHEAD = Software salary pay scales

Because of the dynamic growth of the software industry over the last 
decade, the demand for experienced, qualified programmers has greatly 
increased, thus leading to a spiraling of salaries.

But what causes managers to pay one programmer more than another?  Does 
the type of organization, its size, or location make a difference? 
What career path or programming specialty leads to the most remuneration?

To answer these questions, Acme Magazine recently conducted its third 
annual compensation survey for software pro<->fessionals.  This newsletter 
article presents the results of this study and explores what the findings 
may mean to you.

Acme Magazine asked Joe Smith, a compensation consulting specialist 
for the software industry, to design and conduct the survey.  Twenty-four 
positions, representing four programmer job families plus management, 
were included.

Data was collected for base pay, bonus and incentive payments, and 
whether nor not incumbents received stock options or other forms of 
equity.

Questionnaires were sent to the data processing heads of 2,400 organizations 
throughout the United States.

@HEADLINE = CD-ROM Breaks New Ground

Compact Disk Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) is a rap<->idly emerging new 
technology for the retrieval of vast amounts of information from an 
optical disk.  This new peripheral device allows a totally new level 
of func<->tionality in the use of micro<->computers.

Physically, the CD-ROM device has a laser disk drive (or <169>player<170>) 
the same size as a traditional 5 1/4" drive.  The removable disk is 
4 3/4", and has a capacity of 550M bytes (equivalent to 1500 360K 
floppy disks).

@SUBHEAD = Theory of Operation

Information stored on a CD-ROM can be loaded into memory (RAM), displayed 
and printed, as with other media.  While that data in RAM may be altered 
and stored to a conventional magnetic disk, the original information 
on the CD-ROM is unalterable, always ensuring the original copy is 
intact, making archiving easy.

The storage capacity, low cost, and read only feature of CD-ROM bring 
an enormous new capability to microcomputer users <197> that is, information 
retrieval of very large reference publications.  How people receive 
and use information in the immediate and long term future will be 
dra<->matically changed by CD-ROM.

In addition to the huge ca<->pacity of raw information storage, specialized 
software for the search of that information is currently being intro<->duced.  This 
software allows searching the information in areas, methods and speeds 
not previously feasible.

It now becomes possible to electronically publish ref<->er<->ence 
material more economically than to print the same material in book 
form.  That cost benefit, coupled with search and retrieval software, 
make an astonishing price/performance ratio.

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