From: philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough)
Subject: Re: New SPARC Classic
Keywords: sun, classic, sparc
Organization: University of Toronto, Dept. of Statistics
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 18:37:06 GMT

In article <1992Nov12.021408.5454@RedBrick.COM> jfr@RedBrick.COM () writes:

[ ]

>    1) Sun should be selling the machine at an educational discount beyond
>       the already low $3995 price, even if it is at a loss.  OR
>
>    2) Sun should be selling the machine at a higher price to those of
>       us who aren't *blessed* with access to educational discounts.
>
>  I find both arguments extremely hard to stomach.  I agree that companies
>  should try and reduce their margins on educational sales if they have
>  fairly high margins on regular sales, for several reasons.  Educational
>  usage will help the future by seeding the world with lots of people
>  who are exposed to the machine.   It also helps the present by getting
>  a critical mass of software developers working on the machine who are
>  in a position to build stuff without a massive capital investment (they
>  are already being supported through school by their parents/school/
>  state/federal govt (pick all that apply :-)).  

At first glance this seems reasonable.
>
>  But if the company chooses to reduce its margins to the bare minimum
>  and sell a product at a very small markup to everyone, I don't
>  see why they should be expected to offer educational discounts.
>
>  And I don't see why being in school should somehow magically entitle
>  you to own a machine at a lower price than me, just because you are
>  in school.  And I also fail to see how this is a "low" level of 
>  marketing.   

The main issue involves the collection, generation and delivery of knowledge.
Knowledge should, in my opinion, be freely available and the tools to 
generate it, etc...should be priced at a point to make them accessible to
all people, but especially those involved in generating new knowledge.
 
Universities have produced much of the research knowledge which makes it 
possible for companies to then go on to make a commercial go of repackaging
knowledge and selling it as various products. This has been brought up before,
but one might think of all those mathematical results used in the computing
field, and which get used in designing new products, and all those
mathematicians who will never revieve, not expect, any financial gain for it.
 
I live in a society where universities are not profit oriented.In general the
search for new knowledge is too important to allow it to be hindered by
those who would slow it down for commercial reasons. I do feel that universitiesshould simply not buy, if possible, from vendors that do not provide
substantial educational "discounts".
>
>  BTW, most products are NOT offered at significant educational discounts.
>  For instance, cars, stereos, video cameras, appliances, etc.  Why are
>  computers somehow "different"?  If it is in the vendor's interest to
>  offer a discount, I have no problem with that.  But I fail to see why
>  discounts should somehow be mandated.  I would prefer to see low-margin
>  prices on everything to everybody.

This "vendor's interest" approach does not appear to be in the spirit of man's
search for Nature's secrets.
 
Philip McDunnough
University of Toronto
philip@utstat.toronto.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware