On 26 Mar 2002, Ric Tibbetts wrote:
>
> Average charge per new releass:
> $69.00 per release. x 2 realeases per year. $138.00
> Shipping: $15.00 per boxed set 30.00
> "The Club"
> $10 per month x 12
> (Remember, you need to belong to the
> $10 per month club to get Staroffice 6.0) 120.00
> ---------
> Cost of Mandrake, per year: $288.00
Hi Ric:
I know it seems wrong that what was once entirely free is now nickled
and dimed to become seemingly as expensive as other offerings. I see
it this way though:
Cost of OS from CompUSA $30 US
I don't buy every release, but have bought 7.2, 8.0, and 8.1.
I have maybe 10 PCs throughout my house and business and this $30
is legally able to installed on every one of those. Windows allowed
a desktop/laptop to be installed. WinXP has much greater
restrictions.
StarOffice, never bought it, but say it's $60. That's still comparable
to the price of MS Works or other integrated packages. If you don't
want to pay that much, how about OpenOffice or a combination of other
packages such as AbiWord, Gnumeric, Kpresenter, etc.?
Support? I have used Microsoft enterprise support contracts. At one
time I got a very knowledgeable tech support person who fixed the
problem within a few minutes (this for a weird Excel problem with a
huge 20M spredsheet). Other times I was bounced around and told the
problem was Oracle's, or Compaqs, or that weekly reboots were needed.
Compare the price to WinXP Professional (the only way you'll get a
comparable toolset and server suite) and you'll find that Mandrake is
a lot cheaper. This is without even adding up the prices for similar
tools such as a photo editor, development suite, etc..
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft?
Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
