On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 19:36, Austin wrote: > non-linux-user buys his games and his printer cartridges at Best Buy or Future > Shop. He doesn't have linux, but he's heard that it's cool, and he has a VISA > Gold card in his pocket. This is the type of revenue that would not be tapped > any other way... he doesn't shop online, he's never heard of the club, and his
It's just not practical, which is why they've stopped doing it. One, Mandrake don't make much money on boxes. They pay people to make the boxes, they pay to duplicate the CDs, they pay to print the manuals, they pay for distribution, and they have to sell wholesale to the retailers. They make pennies. To make these pennies they have to have a permanent US office, because big US chains don't want to be calling France all the time. MDK used to sell through US chains, so if they were actually making any decent money from these notional Joe Sixpack buyers with their VISA cards, I don't see why they'd have stopped. I expect the money they saved by stopping bothering with the US office, the workers, the distribution and so on is probably more than they made from selling boxes in the US in the FIRST place. -- adamw
