All that makes sense; thanks for the explanation. Have a great day, Alex
----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian Lingard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "BrailleNote List" <[email protected] Date sent: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:09:05 -0400 Subject: RE: [Braillenote] Some thoughts:
Ottawa Canada
Hi Alex and list:
The expensive part of the BrailleNote is the Braille display.
While time and effort goes into the development and testing of firmware, the cost of putting it onto each unit is minimal as its an EEROM download, not physical precision parts that require delicate assembly and testing by trained hands.
You spend good money developing firmware, but once its written and working, the duplication cost is pretty low.
So if there were different versions of the BrailleNote, they might contain exactly the same physical circuits and display, but have different software on them.
This would let the product target users of particular features more directly, but would spread the firmware development cost over a narrower customer base, raising the cost to each customer who wanted it.
The FM radio chip Humanware uses probably costs less than $10 per chip in production quantity. Asking someone to pay $10 for a feature they may or may not use, but may if they wish is pretty reasonable.
Once the firmware to use the FM radio chip is written, tested and working, it is bought and paid for and the development cost can be charged against each unit it is put on over the life of the product, possibly several years and many thousands of units.
So if it say cost two thousand dollars to write, test and get the FM radio code working right and the exact same program is put into each of four thousand Braille and VoiceNotes, the unit cost of the program is 50 cents, plus the cost of duplicating and installing it.
But if it were optional and only two thousand people ordered it, the unit cost is a dollar per unit or double. Plus there is the cost of taking orders for it and shipping them etc.
While in this case double the cost is not a lot of money, on a more expensive and complex program, double the price may be a whole lot. And if only one quarter of the people buy it, the unit price is four times what it would be as a standard feature!
Hope this example gives you an idea of the economy of scale.
Brian Brian K. Lingard email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skype: ve3yiab2ji15 tel: +1 (613) 247-0665 New York NY Tel +1 (646) 797-2862 FAX +1 (613) 247-9998
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