I think you are right with the distributor-"problematic". Maybe the devices will get cheaper when there's a bigger amount of orders. Imho €500 is very much money, but if I had to pay this for a free, not as in free beer, device - well, I had to pay it. ;) Also I think that distributors will get the devices cheaper, maybe at $400 or $350. So the chances to get the device for €450 or less on the free market are high.
I heard people saying they'd never buy a FIC device, because it's a big bad company and they'd buy a device by HTC and try to get OpenMoko running. That's not my opinion - I'm glad and very thankful to FIC that they are the first who produce a phone as open as possible and support a completely opened sofwareplattform. The price for freedom was always high (whatever this price was, not only in money), and if I have to pay more money than usual (but don't forget, Nokia and HTC also want to have about 400 to 600 USD for their devices, the people just think the subsidized devices by mobile carriers are the normal price) and I'm willing to pay this price in money (we can be glad to get a bit freedom for money!) for the device I ever wanted. 2007/7/2, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
If I read the announcement of Sean correctly, * only the GTA1 device will be 300 US$ and will be shipped directly from Taiwan. * the GTA2 devices will have local distributors and will cost 450 US$. Secondly, a distributor has to handle warranty and marketing, answer phone calls, do repairing, has to run his ordering system, pay insurances and income taxes, and prepare for currency exchange rate fluctuations etc. This usually adds *** at least 10% ***. So I would not expect that the GTA2 device is available for less than: ($450 + $20) / 1.34 * 1.19 * 1.10 = 459 EUR Therefore I would even prepare for 499 EUR and we all can be happy if it is less and not more. Also consider: they have produced 1000 GTA1 devices and want to sell them at $300. This is 300 k $ revenue. Does this cover production cost? maybe. Does this cover development cost (I would expect that they have to pay salaries for at least 10 engineers plus Sean's travel expenses...): no. So, we simply should not expect the device to be the cheapest one we can get. And although we have for the first time the freedom to install our own software on the Neo devices for free, we (and our friends) have to purchase a lot of devices to finance the future hardware development! Don't expect that FIC (or anybody else) can and will subsidize the new company for years. So we should see any additional price tag as the price for openness and as a donation to keep the hardware development wheel spinning. Am 02.07.2007 um 09:16 schrieb Thomas Gstädtner: > I calculated the costs for germany. > Think the shipping will be at about USD 20. > ($300+$20)/1.34*1.19 = € 285 > 1.34 is relation dollar-euro, 1.19 the 19% Import-VAT in germany. > Mobile phones do not have taxes in the EU. > > > 2007/7/2, Attila Csipa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Starting July > 9th, we will launch openmoko.com and start taking orders. > > > There was talk about an European distributor. Will that be a > coordinated > effort and start taking orders on that day too ? Also, it would be > good to > get a confirmation on the Euro prices ( = USD+taxes/duties/shipping/ > etc) the > end customers on the old continent will have.
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