Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!mips!mark
From: mark@mips.COM (Mark G. Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Don't call it Price Gouging
Message-ID: <31599@hal.mips.COM>
Date: 17 Nov 89 15:42:20 GMT
Reply-To: mark@mips.COM
Lines: 24

What is the largest value ever seen for the ratio

            Cost of software package S for computer C
     -------------------------------------------------------   ??
       Hardware cost of appropriately configured machine C


There are some software vendors who "reason" as follows:
	Gee, I sell it for $X on the IBM PC, and this other
	computer C is (n) times faster than the PC, so I'll price
	the software at $(n*X) for computer C.

The numbers get _really_ astounding when the SW vendor normalizes
his pricing to a VAX; then for example a copy for the NeXT (whose
HW is substantially cheaper and substantially faster than a VAX)
would cost 3x as much as a VAX copy.

I myself have seen price quotes "Software S to run on computer C"
where the software costs 8 times as much as the hardware.  Is this
a record?
-- 
 -- Mark Johnson	
 	MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
	(408) 991-0208    mark@mips.com  {or ...!decwrl!mips!mark}