Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ns-mx!iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu!maverick.ksu.ksu.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!emory!att!cbnewsl!npn
From: npn@cbnewsl.att.com (nils-peter.nelson)
Newsgroups: comp.text
Subject: Re: Price of DWB 3.1
Summary: Estimation of DWB binary price
Message-ID: <1990Nov19.143129.12604@cbnewsl.att.com>
Date: 19 Nov 90 14:31:29 GMT
References: <1990Nov5.022533.29625@nixtdc.uucp> <16706@letni.UUCP> <2971@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 25

In article <2971@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>, tut@cairo.Eng.Sun.COM (Bill "Bill" Tuthill) writes:
> I think this is finally the end of troff.  Hallelujah!  Thank you
> AT&T for finally driving a stake through its heart.
> 
> Here are your choices:
> 
> 	DWB 3.1 (with Picasso)		$30,000
> 	Frame 2.1 (graphics included)	$ 2,500
> 
> Admittedly DWB 3.1 includes source, but who needs source if you
> have support?  It's hard to imagine that any troff VAR would sell
> DWB 3.1 for significantly less than $2,500-- they don't now.  So
> when Frame comes out with a great table package, what advantage
> could troff offer?  A rebarbative input syntax, perhaps?


For DWB 2.0, binary price ran as low as $99 (nroff for PC).
List price for most workstations was under $1,000.
Assuming the VAR has any significant business, the source
license is less than 5% of his cost, so is unlikely to
be a significant factor.
Bill might also enjoy the current bantering (in comp.text.desktop,
I think) ensuing from someone's complaint that it seems to be
impossible to divert formatted output to a file using his
favorite formatter.