On Tue, Dec 06, 2005 at 10:07:18AM -0500, Timothy Miller wrote: > On 12/6/05, Attila Kinali <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Because the price for an add on card is about the double/tripple > > from the additional price we'd pay for a dual link on board. > > I have the impression that there is a demand for dual link, > > that's why i'm promoting it. > > That brings up another point. Many users would want various versions > of OGD, where different options are added or not. For instance, we > may have a video-in on OGD, but since OGA won't have that, then OGD > can go without it. > > The problem here is that under certain circumstances, addition of a > few dollars in parts can cost $100. This may sound extreme, and it is > just a rough guess on my part, but if out of an order of 100 boards, > only one gets the video-in part added, then one board has to be pulled > and have the other parts added, or the assembly line would have to be > reconfigured to add those extra parts to only one board from the > beginning, which would make it REALLY prohibitive. And then there's > testing (and the fact that we're not set up for testing yet), etc. > > On the other side, we may not be offering stripped down versions. > Some people won't want the RAM on it, but unless the demand for that > were really high, there wouldn't be any meaningful cost savings. > > Having different models has its challenges, but "throwing it all on > there" is undesirable too. > > What do we do about this? :) > > Submodules.
Nice example is: http://www.hothardware.com/reviews/images/Gladiac/Gladboard.jpg The vertical headers in the middle there allow either this: http://images.anandtech.com/old/video/elsa/Gladiac/video.gif A BT869 TV encoder. Or this: http://www.rivastation.com/review/gladiac_prev/videom_g.jpg An SAA7108/9 TV encoder/framegrabber. Similarly, there are ADD cards for the i845/65. I can dig up tons of these modular examples when given a bit of time with google. The only reason you wouldn't want to go for those is total cost of end product. More hardware onboard means a single very expensive option for the end user, something everyone will have to buy. Your margin goes further then. This is probably very alluring from a business point of view, but more people are budget conscious than Free Hardware conscious. Either you sell only to those who are willing to splash out a lot of cash for Free Hardware. Or you can sell the base board to a much larger crowd and sell the modules to those who are willing to pay the premium. Provide 3 DVO headers on the base board and a whole range of submodules (which are rather simple to design). - Offer the baseboard bare for the lowest price. - Offer the modules seperately. - Offer the baseboard together with a few common combinations for a price lower than baseboard + seperately bought modules. Luc Verhaegen. _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
