Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!me!davin
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
From: davin@me.utoronto.ca (Davin Yap)
Subject: Re: HP Promo??
Message-ID: <90Aug15.031010edt.18553@me.utoronto.ca>
Keywords: Equation Solver, promo, 48sx
Organization: University of Toronto, Department of Mechanical Engineering
References: <1990Aug12.023453.10030@ipsa.reuter.com> <90Aug12.215445edt.19137@me.utoronto.ca> <56563@microsoft.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Date: 15 Aug 90 07:10:19 GMT

In article <56563@microsoft.UUCP> alonzo@microsoft.UUCP (Alonzo GARIEPY) writes:

[lots of points, that though true, are slightly off topic and hence deleted]

Now to the gist of the current discussion:

dy>> I realize that the equation library wasn't ready until recently, and
dy>> that they probably want to attract the "back to school" market, but to
dy>> neglect their strongest supporters... 
   
ag> I used to go to the ballet *very* frequently when I was a student.  It cost
ag> me $5 for the best seat in the house.  Now it costs $75.  Should I whine?
ag> Surely the strong supporters of the ballet are those who pay the $75.

How would you feel, if after buying your tickets to a performance of the
ballet, the company found itself with 1000 empty tickets, and decided to
give the thousand people who bought the remaining tickets (at the same
price), a free CD of the ballet that night?  Myself, I'd be pretty
peeved.  Would it not have been more fair to give the CDs to the _first_
thousand people who bought the tickets?  Yes, for these truly are their
strongest supporters.  I chose the CD example because it is of the same 
relative worth to the ballet tickets as the equation library is to the 48SX,
not because this is likely to happen.

We can all squabble about marketing stategies, recovery of R&D cost 
and profit margins until we're blue in the face.  I'm not in that line of
business professionally, nor, do I imagine, is anyone taking part in this
discussion.  While we can all string together coherent sentences,
rationalizing the (in)correctness of HP's promo offer, based solely on
the fact that we're all quite capable of logical thought, it needn't be
as complicated as that.  It all boils down to something we all have in
common - the schoolyard.  What HP has done is tantamount to a little boy
giving candy to some new kids, so that they'll be his friends, while
refusing to give any candy to his best friends.  If my best friend did
that to me, I'd be pretty upset with him.  

Small kids hold grudges; big kids hold big grudges; the earth is round.

Davin