Re: Bundling and operating systems

[Joe Barr <joe@pjprimer.com>]

On Sun, 19 Dec 1999, Simon Cooke wrote:

> (1) What happens if the price remains constant? Or if the cost drops? The 
> retail-store cost of Windows (3.1, 95, 98, 98SE) has dropped over the years. 
> Windows 98 has IE included. It costs approximately the same as Windows 95 - 
> and that's BEFORE you take into account inflation, in which case it costs 
> less.

Unfortunately, that is not true.  Current versions of Windows cost twice,
double, take the first and add it to itself, the price of Win 3.1.  That's to
OEMs, where 99.99 percent of all copies of Windows are sold.  

Retail prices are up about 15%.  Taking into account improved distribution
methods and packaging and the falling prices of the personal computer industry
as a whole, retail prices are 2 to 3 times as high as they should be.

How does distribution or media come into play?  In one of the long string of
record profit quarters, MS sought to dodge some of its embarrassment of riches
by claiming the profits that quarter were the result of using CDs instead of
diskettes.

MS also raised the price on NT by altering its license when it claimed that NT
workstation was fatally ill with a disease known as "socket fatigue."  The only
cure, per Redmond, was to upgrade.

MS also regularly raises the prices on its Office Suites by modifying the
licenses.  That's why all the unrest at the universities the past few years. 
Loss of concurrency being the single greatest license manipulation maneuver
used thus far to increase the price.

As always, MS continues to lie about it while they raping their vict.., er, 
customers.


-- 

+-----------------------------------------
+ "I shall try to look like a small black
+ cloud.  That will deceive them."   Pooh