This article describes the findings and analysis following the Europea
n Commission-funded survey of High Performance Computing and Netwvorki
ng (HPCN) software tools. The study's goal was to ascertain which forc
es are shaping the European HPCN software-tool market. The survey used
detailed interviews with 25 European tool-development centers to defi
ne a model for the European software-tool market. Analysis of the mark
et structure indicates that where software tools contain technologies
linked to the underlying hardware, the policies of the hardware vendor
s are dominant forces. The influence of hardware vendors is less appar
ent where the tools are more closely associated with software applicat
ions.