Re:Total Cost of Membership (was Ownership)

["Glenn T. Livezey" <glivezey@netserv.unmc.edu>]

  On Sun, 21 Dec 1997 06:59:59 -0500 (EST), cswiger@widowmaker.com wrote:
  
  >>MS "OS" Windoze3.x Win1895 P2000 Crapolas Lose98 turkeys
  >Heee.
  
  Glad to provide a smile.....
  
  >Bottom line: Macs cost more, people stayed away in droves.
  
  But , as I said, scale could go along way to covering this discrepancy.
  
  >Just another observation: The rocket fuel that powered this
  >industry the last 24 years has been lowering costs - what
  >used to cost $300,000 and was made of transistors could
  >suddenly be had for $5000 and was made of IC's. Intel et al
  >have been pushing forward with more and more performance/price.
  
  And at the same time selling the "NEED" for rockets instead of cars.
  If a wordprocessor didn't need 12MB RAM and 30-50MB of HDspace
  you couldn't sell the numbers of "upgrades" that are occuring. And
  those who really DO need a rocket do not want to hobble their craft
  by building "windows" into a cylinder trying to acheive escape velocity.
  We could have all these innovations and cost reductions post truly
  impressive increases in productivity if we weren't using most of the 
  gain in performance to overcome the increasingly bulky and unbalanced
  payload of code.
  
  
  
  >Don't underestimate the power of price tag competition in 
  >this land of WalMarts! Many, many domestic and foreign PC
  >manufacturers were stumbling over themselves to produce a
  >cheaper product and undercut the competition. All the while
  >Apple choose to be the sole source of a higher price box,
  >go for an upscale market, and lost. They even did that at
  >a product strategy meeting - someone help up a cheap, plastic
  >low quality flashlight and said "This is your typical PC",
  >we're going to be better than that. They're free do that.
  >And shoppers are free to take it or leave it.
  
  Yes but much of this discussion is about NOT being free to 
  "leave it", ie MS preinstalls.
  
  >The rest of your reply goes into the TOTAL cost of ownership
  >issue, the agressively, competitively priced PC 'trojan horse'
  >with all it's hidden support and maintenance costs, which
  >Apple could capitalize on to fight back, IF they can get the
  >word out on the street and convince people that the higher
  >up front cost is worth it in the long run, but it's a risky
  >strategy that's bucking the above mentioned trend of getting
  >more bang for your buck, warts and all.
  
  But that is just my point. You don't have to invest in MORE
  hardware (higher upfront costs) if your software makes efficient use
  of what you have. Half the reason the customer is disappointed with
  that "competitively priced PC 'trojan horse'" is that it won't run the
  software that's bundled "free" at anything faster than a walk. And the
  response is always - "well you need MORE machine" when in fact
  what they need is to  jettison the "free" cargo.  
  
  >Returning to the cost ignorant benchmark chart: a java app
  >running on system8 running on a PowerPC 604 may outperform
  >a java app running on Win9X running on a pentiumII - but
  >boy is it going to cost ya, dollars. If you can just work
  >out the price tag issue, you gotta business deal! 
  
  Java is new, and was never meant to be a screaming enterprise
  engine. If allows more folks to customize their desktops. Maybe
  in time it will perform well enough to supplant some "serious C"
  applications (IF the customer/user is smart enough to build only
  the application features they need in Java). But its early failures
  have been greatly exagerated by attempts to write Java substitutes
  for bloated office suites, instead of lean and mean BUT COMPATIBLE
  miniapps to do the chores that each user needs to accomplish in
  a day.
  If you need to model a complex protein structure and twirl it about
  a variable axis for designer drug development - you don't want a
  Java app. But Java is for all those folks who just want to write letters 
  ( with a cc: to their account files), analyse simple sales figures for a 
  market one human can actually comprehend (the accounts they are 
  directly responsible for), create a report of their activities and 
  projections.........................
   - in other words, to communicate, produce/sell and document their work.
  
  >If all the hidden maintenance costs were as bad as your insults
  >make it out to be, you'd think people would learn and 
  >make different purchasing decisions, and 'tip' the market
  >to a different, more reliable standard platform, 
  
  Tell me where I'm wrong about my "insults" re: hidden costs. I'll grant that
  you might just wipe the harddrive and start over (its still your time but you
  don't need to purchase utilities to surgically remove all the metastatic
  dlls), but having done this for a decade with OS/2, I've got the receipts
  to prove the costs of fighting for an alternative to MS.
  
  And why should you think that "people (would) learn and make different 
  purchasing decisions, and 'tip' the 'market' to a different, more reliable 
  standard platform" if nothing about their current knowledge is changed?
  Based on what? If the costs remain hidden, why expect insights?
  If there is no practical alternative offered (eg exclusive MS installation
  contracts), if marketing the big lie is 'enforced' by criminal tactics and
  attempts to rein in the criminals are met by the 'Posse Comotose' chanting
  antigovernment "free market" slogans, why should the "market" (Joe user
  and friends) even sense the need for a revolt? We've got executives and 
  home users alike make purchasing decisions based on the computer 
  equivalent of Calvin Klein ads (fade from black...... 
                 to a pile of charred bodies being bulldozed into a trench, when one
                  of them arises from the pile, assumes a haughty but depressed 
                  stance in front of the dozer, puts both hands in the pockets of
                 "its"-[neutral gender emaciated adolescent] jeans and sighs deeply,
                  as the voice over says 'Le Comp - outsourcing for those days when 
                   your desk cannot contain your desires - computing for those people
                  who see above the crowd and stand to face the blade
                                                              '......fade to black).
  
  >IF indeed it really is and not just someone's personal prejudices that they feel
  >needs to be forced upon a public unable to make rational buying decisions.
  
  "If indeed it (a different platform) really is (more reliable)" - Now really...can you 
  name one other "platform" (nonMS) that has produced such a relentless torrent
  of disappointments in delayed or disappeared release dates, system lockups,
  file deletions, data corruption, compatibilitiy issues, "security" leaks (I hesitate 
  to even use the word security within this context -given the expectations of its
  meaning), and viral characteristics (corrupting competitors software installs)
  that windoze has unleashed on the public - all in the name of "innovation" and
  "features"?  
  Benchmarks and resource requirements are not "personal prejudices".
  I don't mean to hold up my own choice of OS as the new solution to all problems. 
  But we are talking about a MS monopoly that explicitedly does FORCE its code
  upon a public that IS UNABLE to make rational buying decisions because they
  are denied the facts about what is being offered for sale and because they are 
  denied MANY reasonable and SUPERIOR alternatives (Macs included) by way
  of criminal business practices that create unfair (and technically unfounded)
  advantages for MS.
  
  
  Glenn T. Livezey, Ph.D.
  Director of Perinatal Research
  Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine
  Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology
  University of Nebraska Medical Center
  600 South 42nd Street
  Omaha, NE 68198-3255
  Phone- 402-559-8064
  FAX- 402-559-7126
  e-mail glivezey@netserv.unmc.edu