Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpfcso!dgr
From: dgr@hpfcso.HP.COM (Dave Roberts)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: HP Promo??
Message-ID: <7360004@hpfcso.HP.COM>
Date: 21 Aug 90 18:40:10 GMT
References: <1990Aug12.023453.10030@ipsa.reuter.com>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Lines: 72



Leading disclaimer: Although I work for HP, I don't work even near the
guys who designed this calculator (we're talking states away) and I
had nothing to do with either its pricing or development, and, for
that matter, I don't even own one.  I want to say that my response
would be exacly the same if I worked for McDonalds.  There, that
should establish my non-bias on this, right... :-)


davin@me.utoronto.ca (Davin Yap) writes:

[ definitely human feelings of getting ripped off deleted ]

> 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.

I'd feel kind of ripped off.  But...

Why do theaters have student discounts?  It isn't because they love
students so much.  The truth is, they probably wouldn't sell the seats
if they didn't have a catch to bring in more people.

Same thing with senior discounts.

Same thing with anything that comes out and is initially expensive
that later goes on sale.

> 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.  

Right, we can squabble 'till we're blue, but I don't think we have to.
I am in this business professionally (engineering that is), but I
still don't get too ticked off.  It happens all the time, to me, to
you in many other places, and to everybody else.  Do you get this bent
out of shape when you miss a department store sale because you bought
the exact same item two months earlier?  I don't.  Those are the
breaks.  I mean, it's a bummer, but what would you have anybody do
about it?  How often have you, when something neat initially comes
out, said, "Well, I want one, but I'll wait a month 'till it goes on
sale."?


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

Big kids either wait for sales or don't get jacked out of shape when
they miss them.

> Davin
> ----------

Dave Roberts
Hewlett-Packard Co.
Workstation Group
Ft. Collins, CO
dgr@hpfcla.fc.hp.com