Transferability of data and programs between computer systems

The cost of problem analysis and programming dominates by far the cost of computer utilization. This dominance will increase in the future as hardware elements become more powerful and economical and problems become more complex and demanding of highly skilled analysis. As this trend continues, the sophisticated user will become increasingly intolerant of a situation which prevents economic transfer of programs and data from one installation or hardware type to another. A standard machine independent environment which provides data management services at several levels to programmers and task programs should be defined. Programs would then interface with a set of virtual machines, or standard program environments, which are independent of the particular hardware configuration of the installation.