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From: beaucham@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Optical Disk price change
Message-ID: <72100013@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 13 Oct 90 05:00:00 GMT
References: <72100012@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu>
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Nf-From: uxh.cso.uiuc.edu!beaucham    Oct 13 00:00:00 1990


Since I see no response to the question about the 100% price increase
on the optical disk media, I thought I would post the two meaningful
responses which I received:

The most probable reason that the price increased was that Canon has been 
selling the OD media to NeXT at below production cost. (This is what you 
folks call "dumping" when you're in a bad mood, "being nice" when you're
in a good mood). My assumption is that Canon couldn't bear subsidizing
the OD indefinitely, especially in lieu of the fact that NeXT is now
producing machines without an OD, something they said they wouldn't do.

************************

The optical disks are indeed the same.  What is different is that Canon
is no longer aggressively pushing the technology.  The price before was
designed to get people using the format and push the production up 
high enough so that they could make a profit.  I believe that you'd
still see an OD in the new cubes if Canon had found a larger market.
(The folks at NeXT didn't exactly say so, but they seem to think this
is Canon's fault.)