From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Subject: Re: Interesting tidbit from September 7, 1992 PC Week
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 16:38:26 GMT

In <1992Oct12.211507.28311@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:

>In article <1992Oct9.174033.25293@mksol.dseg.ti.com> mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539) writes:
>>
>>Well, I'd say that someone in this discussion doesn't understand
>>simple economics, but I don't think it is Jay on this one (and that is
>>a professional opinion).  The original price being bruited about for
>>NT was $600-$900.  This was met with a lot of, "Well, I certainly
>>won't pay that for it, so if it costs that much I just won't use it,"
>>from a lot of quarters.  The latest statements are on the order of
>>"under $500".  Now, think about it for a moment, Phil.  Given that the
>>less expensive people think NT will be (i.e., the better value it is
>>expected to be) the more likely they are to wait for it instead of
>>going with something else, wouldn't MS have to be pretty stupid to
>>name a maximum number that was much above the expected price?  That
>>just encourages more people to look for other alternatives (the people
>>whose positions on the indifference function leave them with
>>insufficient utility gain at that price).

>     OK, Fred.  Your argument seems to be "Microsoft would announce
>the lowest possible price for the product."  I will assert that this
>would be bad business practice.  Which do you think would garner
>more criticism:  Microsoft announcing "less that $500" and releasing
>a product that sold for $100, or Microsoft announcing "less than $100"
>and releasing a product that sold for $150?

That's not my argument, Phil.  My argument is that Microsoft would
likely quote the lowest price that they were sure they could get
under.  So, I'm not claiming that NT will cost $499.95; I will,
however, be quite surprised if it is under $350 or so, retail.  You
erect an interesting strawman, but it would be more interesting if you
would respond to what is written rather than your interpretation of
it. 

>>>     Just what is your definition of FUD, anyway?  Please explain how
>>>competitive pricing of the Windows NT SDK is FUD in any way.
>>
>>Personally, I think MS has put itself into a bind here.  Statements
>>have been made that NT will be priced at less than $500, which leaves
>>the impression that it will indeed be in that range.  This means that
>>people to whom it is not worth that much are not going to wait for it.
>>However, having sold the SDK for $69, it will be very hard for MS to
>>justify putting that kind of price on NT.

>    It's interesting to note that the $69 SDK comes with _no_
>paper documentation and requires a CD-ROM drive (as I'm sure you're
>well aware, Fred).  The final release will likely not have those
>restrictions.

And will they have a version that DOES come that way for $69?  Or
should it be less than that, since it won't include development tools
and such? 


-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.