Digital BW, The Print

>   > There are plenty of examples of a product being priced for the 
platform.
>   > The scientific s/w package Machematica cost a lot more on a Sun 
or Cray
>   > than on a PC or Mac. The same for Matlab. It fact I would think 
this is
>   > more the rule than the exception.
>   >
>   > Truman
> 
>   Truman,
> 
>   That has always been true for CAD/EDA tools (Computer Aided
>   Design/Electronic Design Automation).  Unix variants, though they 
do exactly
>   the same thing, and possibly less even, cost near 2x the PC 
variant!!!
> 
>   Regards,
> 
>   Austin


Austin & all all-

It's crazy to argue from our point of view just how IP should price 
their product...it needs to be addressed from THEIR point of view. 

I'ts my impression they are a small company that has made it this far 
by providing custom high end support to profession shops...mainly 
design shops. And that is how they establish the pricing model.

I must admit I was totally shocked by the one printer/multiple pc 
scheme. To me that was backwards...I use one or two pc's and 4-6 
printers. But the design shop may have 15 networked PCs all using one 
printer. For them, this is the best pricing policy.

If you put yourself in IP's shoes for a minute, you will see that 
they probably don't trust the "consumer" market but they know and 
trust the professional market. If I were running a business that was 
successful, I would be very reluctant to pull the rug from the folks 
who got me there. 

Think about it...PiezoBW is a very big deal in a miniscule market 
segment...we have no idea how many copies Jon has sold. But if you 
figure that 50% of this forum and 80% of his (minus some of the 
duplicates) all bought it... he may have only sold a couple thousand 
copies...maybe he would have made more money selling 1/4 the number 
of copies at 4x the price and because they would have been more 
sophisticated customers, he could have served them better and much 
much more cheaply than he can the 2000 of us...

Only time will tell which approach is right, but these guys are doing 
this and need to make a living from it...and they have to live with 
their choices... we can switch back and forth from Piezo to IP and 
back and it's not the major factor in our financial future.

I give a lot of credit to both companies stiving to create a 
breakthrough technology in an area where relatively very few people 
really care about it...and perservering...good on 'ya, guys.

Tom O'Connell

TomOC@...
www.thomasoconnell.com