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From: wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Prices of Forth systems
Message-ID: <9008241608.AA00381@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 24 Aug 90 10:09:28 GMT
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Reply-To: wmb%MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV
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> seems like a Catch-22.  If you had the clients you could afford to
> advertise, but you can't afford to advertise until you have the clients.

It's not really a Catch-22; investment in a business will allow you to
avertise in anticipation of future profits.

The problem is that the expected return is too low.  I can't afford to
advertise because the total market for Forth products is small.

I could afford to advertise my higher priced items, such as my ROM monitor
product for SPARC-based computers.

This sort of reinforces the perception of high-priced commercial Forth
products; you see advertisements for them because the expected return
on #units times unit-price will pay for the advertising, which is usually
not true for low-priced Forth products.

In all honesty, I should admit that one reason that I don't advertise
is because I can't really handle more business right now in the few
hours per week that I have to devote to Bradley Forthware.  But even
so, I probably wouldn't advertise my low-priced items through traditional
publication channels.

Mitch