Does it help to know "Scalability" ratings of Software when
making hardware and software procurement decisions?  The answer
is "Yes, of course!" as I explain below. But first, an
analogy.Toys, more generally - kids toys, are typically rated
based on the target age group for which the toys are
recommended. There is in fact a 300-odd page document that
provides the guidelines!  While not based on exact science, the
age rating does help in toy selection. Computer games and
Holywood movie ratings likewise provide useful information about
their appropriateness for consumers of different ages. Here is a
typical example:  However, software products rarely, if at all,
provide any information about the size of target machines on
which they are designed to run. For instance, it is hard to know
whether they can run on multi-core machines and if so upto what
number of CPUs such software can scale. It is not unusual to not
even know whether the software can even take advantage of multi-
core machines even though multi-core