Re: cheap PC and pirated DOS/WINDOWS

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#5946

From: Jason Adams Vanvalkenburgh
Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1992 01:49

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I was once in the retail computer business, run out of my home while
I was in high school (I'm now in college).

In terms of price competetiveness, I could beat anyone's hardware
prices.  But where the difference came was in software...

Legal copies of Dos and Windows could cost more than $100 combined because
I could not deal in quantity.  Large volume suppliers could beat my prices
by bundling TONS of software with their systems that cost them substantially
less than what I would pay.

One way around this was to purchase upgrade packages (for DOS 5, Windows,
Excel, and the like with cheap upgrades).  But this had its problems because
the registration material asked for upgrade info.  You were little better
off with pirated versions (which I did not sell or install).

Gradually I got out of the business for just this reason:  without pirating
software it was difficult to compete, especially with hardware prices falling
faster than my inventory turnover.  I suspect these two factors contributed
to the sudden closing of a lot of clone-shops.

-jason v.
--
					Jason A. vanValkenburgh
					University of Virginia
					ACC MicroConsultant
					jav2d@virginia.edu

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Message-ID: <1992Nov5.014928.25165@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>

Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!caen!uvaarpa!murdoch!faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU!jav2d

References: <0001@gmath.uum.edu>

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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!caen!uvaarpa!murdoch!faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU!jav2d
From: jav2d@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Jason Adams Vanvalkenburgh)
Subject: Re: cheap PC and pirated DOS/WINDOWS
Message-ID: <1992Nov5.014928.25165@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Sender: usenet@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU
Organization: University of Virginia
References: <0001@gmath.uum.edu>
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 01:49:28 GMT
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