Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!snorkelwacker!spdcc!xylogics!world!dfickes
From: dfickes@world.std.com (David Fickes)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Yet Another Upgrade Anecdote
Message-ID: <1990May9.074000.11514@world.std.com>
Date: 9 May 90 07:40:00 GMT
References: <1990May6.133250.18193@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <385@newave.UUCP> <1990May8.045111.617@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Sender: dfickes@world.std.com
Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers
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Lines: 23

In article <1990May8.045111.617@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> msp33327@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Michael S. Pereckas) writes:
>> [much deleted about automobiles]
>hearing, "This Cadallac costs $25,000, but this other model, which is
>really the same, is only $18,000 because we bashed the sides in for
>you at the factory."

Oh come on .. they didn't bash in the sides, they welded the 
trunk shut... :)

The basics come down to this... like many industries the computer
industry is driven by revenue (dollar volume) and profit.  Since
R&D is already a sunk cost pricing becomes a matter of producing
the largest dollar volume in a certain market with some consideration
of variable costs (hey we've already bought the factory...)  Its
very similar to a large number of industries like say... publishing
where something like 10% of the books printed support the other 
90% and create the profits... the other books are there to give
the people in production something to do... :)

- david
-- 
David K. Fickes			dfickes@world.std.com
(617) 536-6352