Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!athene!pcg From: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386 Subject: Re: OS costs Message-ID: Date: 2 Sep 90 14:50:04 GMT References: <350@usaos.UUCP> <1990Aug28.182758.29036@ico.isc.com> <1990Aug30.032304.84@pegasus.com> Sender: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP Organization: Coleg Prifysgol Cymru Lines: 37 In-reply-to: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk's message of 31 Aug 90 20:24:33 GMT On 31 Aug 90 20:24:33 GMT I wrote: pcg> On 30 Aug 90 03:23:04 GMT, richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) said: richard> Guessing the optimal price is perhaps a marketeers most richard> difficult job. But there's always the possibility that if you richard> reduce your price by 50% you'll increase your sales by 200%. richard> With no way to prove it except to try it. pcg> It is my impression is that they are trying very hard to limit pcg> sales, and thus will strive to keep the price as high as they can. pcg> In case this sounds crazy to you, sales must be backed by capital; pcg> if you are short of capital, the best way to increase absolute net pcg> income is not to increase sales, but price; this will reduce sales pcg> and thus the demand for capital. Just to make sure that everybody understands (somebody that wrote me somewhat obnoxiously by e-mail did not): this is about *UNIT* sales. This was _very_ clear from Richard Foulk's comments, that indicated a tradeoff between unit sales and price (in his example sales revenue would grow 50% -- units sales grow to 3 times the original at half the price). richard> It is my distinct impression that ISC and SCO are erroring on richard> the high side. Given that it may be possible to get the same sales *revenue* selling many units at a low price (higher market share) or less units at a high price (lower market share) this implies that the former is always preferable -- this is not so, if you are constrained by capital. There may be other reasons, but I have (let me repeat myself) the impression that ISC are already badly strained by market growth... -- Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk