Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!elroy!cit-vax!tim
From: tim@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Timothy L. Kay)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: US-Japan chip pact
Message-ID: <6043@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: 7 Apr 88 19:22:26 GMT
References: <3b3430a9.44e6@apollo.uucp> <656@jclyde.UUCP> <499@etn-rad.UUCP>
Reply-To: tim@ducat.caltech.edu (Timothy L. Kay)
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 51
Summary: add-in boards are overpriced

I don't know what this has to  do with the  original subject, but what
the heck.  I'll bet that some of you are interested in my comments.

John Unekis writes:

> I have been an engineer (making computer systems)  for nine years, and
> I have  come  to appreciate how   valuable  the law  can  be. Just try
> producing a new circuit board  for the IBM PC  without a patent on it.
> In two weeks some clone maker will have  copied it, and will steal all
> the profit that should have been the reward of your efforts.

Times are changing.  In this  day  and age, a manufacturer had  better
either get a patent or STOP TRYING TO GOUGE THE  CONSUMER.  After all,
add-in cards aren't all that hard  to make these  days (or the cloners
wouldn't be able to duplicate them so easily, would they?).  You don't
see Seagate 251-1 clones, do  you?  I claim this is  because hard disk
drives  are  harder to  make.  But,  just  as importantly,  Seagate is
selling 251-1's at a reasonable price,  and  items that get cloned are
those things that are sold at too much of a premium.

Let's take Hercules as an example.  They built a product that was very
good.  After it caught on, Hercules had two choices:

	1)  "Let's be responsive to customer needs, and offer the
	    board at a reasonable price," or,

	2)  "Let's keep the price unreasonably high, so there
	    is enormous room for the competition to undercut
	    us and still make a good profit."

After all, Hercules had been making the board for several years before
the clones started appearing which should give them  a cost advantage.
Furthermore, they had a reputation  which  would  cause people to  pay
*slightly* more for the genuine  board than for  a clone.   (The  real
Hercules board even had an unprecedented two-year warranty.)
	    
Unfortunately,  they didn't  see  the  writing  on  the  wall, and now
everybody and his sister is cloning Hercules cards.  I don't see *any*
real Hercules cards anymore.   I'll   bet that most people   that  are
buying "monochrome graphics" these days don't  even know that it means
"Hercules compatibility."

I would never pay $60 for  a clone card if  I could get the real thing
for, perhaps, $90.  But I won't pay  hundreds of dollars  for the real
thing.

Rather than complain about being ripped off, American companies should
work a  little harder to  be responsive to  the customers, and thereby
stay  one or two  steps ahead of the  cloners.   This is called  value
adding.

Tim