🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug8.190043.321@digifix!uunet.ca> sanguish@digifix.com (Scott Anguish) writes:
>
>	Does this not seem like a massive rationalization to you?  If
>	someone uses Rightbrain products to produce a newsletter that
>	is sold, wouldn't you say it is being used in an "industrial" manner?
>....
>
>	I don't think that is what you managed to get a across in your message.
>	If Rightbrain sold its utilities products for $10, with nothing except
>	online documentation, they might clear $8 per disk after the cost
>	of the disk and duplication.  But there are may other factors to pull
>	in as far as the cost.	Office, support, advertising, development...
>	So lets say they sell 10,000 copies at $8 that $80,000.  Now subtract
>..
>	Thats $320,000 over the life of the product.  But that doesn't include
>	any of those other expenses.  I'm sure that Glenn and Jack draw a
>	paycheck (as they are entitled to), and that there are other employees
>	as well.  Next Computers aren't free.
>
>	If your payroll was $130,000 per year, and you sold those units over a
>	two year period, your company is gone.	Broke, bankrupt.  What would be
>	the point?

    Aren't you rationalizing now?  Still, using your figures, I would like
    to point out that at $10 a pop, $320K over the life of the product is
    pretty damn good for a restricted market!  You certainly do not base
    your entire company's income on a single product!

    Take your numbers but also take into account that such a company might
    have, say, a DOZEN products each costing on the order of $10.

    Things start to look a bit more rosy, eh?  Perhaps much of the problem
    is that many of the companies out there are basing their entire
    existance on one or two products.  In that sense, I can see a
    justification in the 'insane' (my words) cost of software for the NeXT
    compared to most other machines in the PC market.  I would like to put
    forth the suggestion that basing one's existance on one or two products
    is an extremely unstable position to be in and that one's main goal
    should be to become more stable.

    Using the stability argument and leaving the question of greater or
    lesser profits out of the picture, I would put forward the suggestion
    that lower pricing makes for a more stable response.  How?	well, many
    ways.  Here is one possible scenario:  Lets say some other company
    produces softwware that makes one of your two products obsolete? They
    undercut your price by 1:4 and come out with a marketing coup.  Even if
    you were to move immediately to reduce your prices the marketing effect
    would not filter through to the user community for at least two months
    and in that time you could loose nearly all your market share for that
    product.

    Your company's profit has just been reduced by 50% in less then a week
    and may remain that way for more then a month.  It will not be possible
    to recoup your previous market share of 100% due to the new entry in
    the field.	You are up the proverbial s*** creek.

    On the otherhand, if your product were sold closer to cost (e.g. $100
    instead of $500 as a random example), and the same sequence of events
    occured, the other company would have a much harder time taking away
    your market share because they would not be able to undercut you
    enough to Wow! the end user community.  You would be able to react
    without too much loss or at least have a longer period of time to
    figure the new situation out before you go red.

>> it hard to understand how anyone using Next's C compiler, a GNU/FSF
>> free software product, can criticize the noble goals of the Free
>> Software Foundation.
>
>	Again, it is Mr Stallman's positioning in the GNU manifesto that is
>screwed up.
>	And that is ONLY MY OPINION.
>	Next chose GNU C as its development platform.  I chose Next because of
>	NextStep, not because of the GNU products that it ships with.  I abide
>	by the GNU License.  That is my only obligation.  If I had to buy a
>	compiler to work on the NeXT, that fine by me.

    For what it's worth, my opinion...

    while some of the stuff GNU produces looks like a puffed up blow fish
    (i.e. is a memory and CPU hog), it's all high quality stuff!  GNU has
    done an unimaginably HUGE service to everyone and I acknowledge that
    even if I think Stallman himself goes a bit overboard in his manifesto.

>> It is you apoplectic
>> psychopaths that have advocated shooting people (M Carling),
>> putting them in jail (many of you), etc.  My own approach is
>> kindness and common sense.
>
>	Nothing like the "kindness" of a man who calls people psychopaths
>	and in private states that he would have no remorse if I were to
>	die.  Its a shame that netiquette prohibits me from posting your
>	private e-mail.

    Just because many of us are 'nice guys' doesn't mean we don't get
    pissed off sometimes.  Private email is just that --- meant to be
    private, and although you have the legal right to post it I would
    prefer not to read it.

    I thought it was a pretty good posting myself, with plenty of humor!

    People tend to forget that the USENET is a public forum, and that every
    posting is an OPINION.  The NeXT groups are really quite amazing, I
    don't quite know how to classify them.  They aren't as technical as the
    Amiga conferences but apparently contain more philosophy then the
    philosophy conferences.  NeXT users are as techno-religious (i.e. love
    the machine) as Amiga users but not quite as much as Atari users (for a
    dead machine, some amazing things have been ported or written to that
    system).  The NeXT conferences are rife with marketing related
    information whereas most other conferences have nearly notihng in this
    category (comparatively).  The group spread is more homogenious
    (i.e. off-topic cross postings), probably related to the integration
    of the NeXT itself in some way.

>- Scott Anguish -
>sanguish@digifix.com (NextMail)
>

--

    Matthew Dillon	    dillon@Overload.Berkeley.CA.US
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