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From: chuq@sun.uucp (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: mathematics of support pricing
Message-ID: <3472@sun.uucp>
Date: Wed, 9-Apr-86 12:47:19 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.3472
Posted: Wed Apr  9 12:47:19 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 11-Apr-86 08:28:05 EST
References: <2008@decwrl.DEC.COM> <106@kesmai.UUCP> <13041@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: Fictional Reality, uLtd
Lines: 61

> How would you like to buy a GM car (a complete Lisa aka XL costed about that
> much: Lisa + memory board + software + printer) and then be told six months
> later by GM that (a) they have decided that making your car was a mistake,
> (b) they will do their best to ignore its existence, and (c) if you want
> a new, smaller one you can give them another $1499.
> 
> In point of fact auto makers do not do this. When a model is abandoned, they
> usually establish a 10-15 year supply of parts for it.  Ditto when an auto
> mfg goes out of business.  It is still possible to buy Kaiser and Studebaker
> parts.

Have you looked at prices for parts for abandoned models? In my earlier days
I owned a Chevy Corvair (definitely an abandoned model).  When I had to
replace a rear brake tail lens (a 4 inch piece of molded plastic, color red)
the Chevy dealer was happy to do so. For $35 each, with a three week wait
while they figured out which warehouse it was in. 

At that rat, the 'A' key on a Lisa keyboard would run you about $50.

> As it turns out, you can also get service and parts for IBM 1401s, IBM 1620s,
> and IBM 704s (!!!) all of which are still in service, 20+ years after last
> manufacture and 15+ years after obselence.

And the support contract pricing is usually astronomical; it just isn't 
high enough to force people to do the recoding to move to a decent machine.

RCA did a similar thing to my mother's TV set. Beautiful machine, all tube,
and they slowly raised the service contract to the point where she was
paying the equivalent of a new TV every 18 months. So she bought a new TV.
People with lots of IBM 704 assembler don't always have that option.

This is all beside the point, really. What is the point is whether or not
Apple is 'doing right' by its customers.  People who buy machines and then
expect Apple to give them upgrades free are unrealistic.  You have to
ignore the current price of the machine in your calculations -- if you 
waited until now to buy it, you would have saved money, but look at all 
those things you wouldn't have gotten done. Call it 'rent', call it
whatever, by buying the machine then you got use out of it.

Based on talking to people and looking around at the rest of the industry,
it looks to me like Apple is selling upgrades pretty close to their cost
(cost being manufacturing+overhead, not just manufacturing). Any profit they
make seems to be minimal at best. Break even looks more likely. Anyone with
any sense of reality can't ask for anything more (would you prefer going
back to the days of the $1000 memory upgrade?)

Personally, I'd happily pay a bit more if Apple would only set up a better
support organization -- I'd love to get software upgrades from them instead
of trying to find which dealer has what version of an upgrade, and what it
will take for them to part with it.  Microsoft deals with its customers,
so do most other software houses -- why can't Apple? (end gripe)

chuq

-- 
:From the lofty realms of Castle Plaid:          Chuq Von Rospach 
chuq%plaid@sun.COM	FidoNet: 125/84		 CompuServe: 73317,635
{decwrl,decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,pyramid,seismo,ucbvax}!sun!plaid!chuq

The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your hands
and hoping when a rock or a club will do -- McCloctnik the Lucid