On 9/8/05, Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > As OOo marketeers we should not be > saying what a good deal it is when MS say they are cutting office prices > to $25 from $300 or whatever,
Actually, if you want to look at it from a "OOo Marketeer" prospective, you can view it as a victory. MSO wouldn't offer such a great deal if there was no reason. And, as OOo volunteers, we can note the presence of StarOffice and draw a conclusion (as Ian is so apt to do) that the SO *caused* the MSO to lower its price. we should focus on the fact that if they > can afford to drop the price that much and presumably still make money, > wasn't it a tad over-priced in the first place and for everyone else? "Presumably, they still made money?' Of course they did. What did it cost them? Nothing. The CDs cost over $3 each, the cost of burning a CD, or even having one pressed, is less than a dollar, and with MS's resources, I'm sure they can order in bulk, (or press them themselves) for far less. Then the shipping would still be less than $2, so they are of course making a profit. That's not even counting what U of M paid, just what the students are charged for the CD itself. The software download for free from the U of M servers doesn't cost Microsoft a penny. We're all familiar with the concept of downloading here on this email list, so we know it doesn't cost anything to let someone copy software. So, the $2.7 million was pure profit. But that is not a bad thing. I mean, they are a corporation out to make a profit, and whether that profit is $.01 a CD or $6000 a CD, it's still profit. They are doing what corporations do. If they had not have made this deal with U of M, they wouldn't have gotten the 2.7 million dollars. However, just because MS does something doesn't mean they make money doing it. Xbox sells, for example, cost MS $700 a pop - well they did when the first came out, I'm sure MS's hardware costs have dropped since then. But the Xbox 360 will cost MS more than $299 each, but that's what they are selling them for. Now, that one move is going to cost MS millions. However, the money they make from the nearly pure-profit sales of software for the Xbox and Xbox-Live accounts will far more than make up for the costs. We cannot assume that just because MS does one isolated thing that they are making money from that one isolated move. I mean, in this case, yes, they are probably still profitting. However, they could have taken a loss on it, and still be working towards making money, by - well, you know the drill, "Locking them into a prioritary monopolistic system." (them being the students). And look at how beneficial OOo is to the market. We have just saved you > $275 by providing some much needed competition. Too bad you are still > paying $25 more than we are charging and you still have all that license > key stuff to get in the way. To be fair, (and I know, you're not fair Ian, you're marketing), OOo doesn't offer everything that the $6 MSO does. The main thing MSO offers that OOo can't and won't is the third party tie-ins. I just worked at a plant tonight that has only 4 computers and 1 server, and they are forever locked into Microsoft because they use a database system with their clients information on it that ties directly into MS Word and MS Outlook. It doesn't work with anything else. They don't have anyone to transfer their years of data from their current database into a more open one, and it was cheaper for them to buy a copy of MS Office than try to pay someone to do it for them. I mean, they paid someone (not me) $85 an hour to install MS Office for them, how much more would it cost them to convert their gigabites of data? They paid over $500 for MSO 2003 standard (including the install cost), not because they wanted to upgrade, and not because they love Microsoft, and not even because they think MSO is the best out there, or that they are familiar with it, but because their other software "just works" with MSO. You want to put a marketing spin on that for me, please do. Because I had no answers for the guy. I told him there are free alternatives out there, but I couldn't even begin to promise it would work with what he's got. Legacy data and third party tie-ins. Slay those two dragons and MSO is no more. -Chad Smith
