In today’s rapidly changing application development arena, it’s becoming increasingly clear that a strong alignment between the academic, development, and commercial environments is required in order to be competitive. The lag time between conception and deployment of a software tool is narrowing as each day passes. New offerings seem to spur new demands, which ultimately places a greater emphasis on the requirement for a common understanding between the environments. A basic understanding of each other’s needs and offerings can help to alleviate the stresses inherent in this evernarrowing window. This paper attempts to achieve this goal from a business’ point of view.