From: jeffo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (J.B. Nicholson-Owens)
Subject: Because ppl seem to like pricey stuff (was: Re: NeXTdimension -- Why so pricey?) (long)
Followups-To: comp.sys.next.advocacy
Reply-To: jeffo@uiuc.edu
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 04:03:03 GMT

ice@socrates.umd.edu (Fredrik Nyman) writes:

>I've been lusting for a NeXTdimension ever since I got my NeXTcube
>a year and a half ago.  However, at ~$5,000 retail then and now,
>it has stayed well beyond my financial reach.

Beyond my financial reach as well, and my only justifiable answer I
can come up with is: Because people are willing to pay that price and
ultimately the amount the majority of buyers are willing to pay is
what any product or service is worth.

The way I see it is that the board:

* has JPEG only in software.  This is hardly good enough to do what
  was originally advertised (get many frames off a live video feed
  and save to disk [something like a software movie, I guess]).

* has no close-captioning/titling capability (I've only heard about
  this being promised, I don't recall reading about this in the
  original or revised ad sheets NeXT sent).  Until I hear hard
  evidence that this was officially promised with this board, I
  won't take any money off for it's absence.

* comes not fully-stocked with memory nor with 0 MB ram
  configurations.

* essentially can only function as a single-frame video grabbing
  device and 24 bit (plus 8 bits of alpha, which aren't really
  additional colors and can be achieved by programming so I don't count
  them as any bonus or extra) video board (of questionable quality if
  the frames of Steve Jobs in NeXTWORLD magazine are representative of
  it's output)

* can drive 2 monitors in such a way that you can double the overall
  horizontal resolution.

Therefore, the board is simply not as it was originally advertised.
Because it is not as it was originally planned, I feel a dramatic
reduction of price is long overdue.  However, NeXT chooses to suck up
more money and keep the price as it was when the JPEG hardware was
planned.  This is incredibly terrible.

For a used ND board, I cannot justify paying more than $2,000 for a
board just bought by someone else.  I take off money for missing JPEG
hardware, total time previously owned, and I take half off the best
'new' price right off the top (because it's used and I have no idea
about the treatment it has received).  Given the current list price of
$5,000, I find $2,000 to be acceptable.

NeXT has ignored color alternatives for b&w machine owners (other than
buying color machines) and I think this is also a big mistake.  They
need to stop being so damn greedy about squeezing every nickel out of
their customers on all their products and be truthful right from the
start (that sly attempt at rewording their ads so they could avoid
talking about the missing JPEG hardware was very bad PR to me).

In summary, I would pay for a color upgrade for the b&w machines if it
were done without tricks and if the price was low enough to be
competitive with other platforms' boards offering the same
functionality.  I don't think the NeXTdimension is anywhere near that
because it has no JPEG hardware.
-- 
-- Jeff (jeffo@uiuc.edu)
-- NeXTmail ok
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware