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From: mats@fortune.UUCP (Mats Wichmann)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: save your money
Message-ID: <5814@fortune.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Dec-85 12:11:36 EST
Article-I.D.: fortune.5814
Posted: Thu Dec 19 12:11:36 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Dec-85 06:22:03 EST
References: <297@3comvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: mats@fortune.UUCP (Mats Wichmann)
Distribution: net
Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA.
Lines: 65

Now hold on here!!!

I am no great fan of Tecmar's - I used to compete with them in
the S-100 board business before they started selling PC boards
instead (and making quite a bit of money I might add), and maybe
their prices for Amiga peripherals are too high, but some of this is
getting out of hand....

>
> I hear it from extremely good authority that CardCo, a company that has
> made lots of peripherals for the Commodore 64 will be introducing a 1MB
> expansion card for the AMIGA for the price of $195 or $295.  I understand
> that multiple boards can be used to expand past 1MB.  Supposedly, there is
> a prototype board at the FCC right now, so it should be soon.
> 
Okay. Imagine buying enough 256k chips to make up a 1 meg board -
without parity checking that's 32 chips. Add support circuitry and
cost of making, stuffing, and testing the board (they DO test the
boards, I hope :-) ), the cost of a 1 MB board has got to be $150.
Out of the margin between that price and what it sells for has to
come the company's operating costs plus profit, AND their has
to be room for distributor/dealer discounts. There is just no way
a 1 MB board can sell for $195. Personally, I think around $1000 is
a fair price, but I won't quibble that. Just try to be realistic.
>
> I really think the AMIGA is the machine to end all machines, but we users
> should do our best to make sure that thieves like Tecmar do not overprice
> the peripherals, making a system prohibitive to the average home consumer and 
> small business user.  I think we should wait for Cardco's board and make 
> Tecmar eat as many boards as they make.  
>
The system itself is an amazing buy, and I agree that there is no reason
to pay outrageous prices for add-ons, but keep some reason in your thinking
when you determine what a fair price for something is.
> 
> I also hear that Commodore is planning to drop the price of the Amiga after
> Christmas.  Commodore and Amiga have done everything in their power to not
> make the same MISTAKES as Apple (JokeIntosh) and IBM (PC = pretty crummy).
> Just because a 512K Amiga cries out desparately for more RAM doesn't mean
> that we need to pay for 5 MB and get 1MB.
> 
> I also think that for $1500, we should be able to buy a 140MB hard disk.  I
> know for a fact that Priam makes 140MB disks for well under $1000.
>
Absolutely under no circumstances do they have 140 MB disks for under $1000.
It may be that they offer such prices to large OEM customers (I presume
you are talking about the Vertex disks, although Vertex is part of Priam now),
in VERY large volumes - on the order of tens of thousands of units. Retail 
price for those drive is somewhere from $2500 to $3500 maybe even higher; 
don't expect to see them sold for under $2000 anytwhere, and that's just 
the drive - no provision for controllers, power, or anything like that.

Don't confuse prices offered to large-volume manufacturers with
prices a retail buyer can expect to see. Once again, people are in 
this business to make a profit. Selling things at cost will not keep 
a business around very long, not in an area where continuing R&D is 
so important and where the margins necessarily have to be high. If 
you are running a food store, you don't have to develop your next 
line of products - all you do is resell goodies your distributor brings 
you. If you make computer equipment and don't budget for the future, 
you will be around for a very short time.

    Mats Wichmann
    Fortune Systems
    {ihnp4,hplabs,dual}!fortune!mats