Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 15:28:05 -0400 (EDT) From: "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb@kryten.Atinc.COM> To: dennis <dennis@et.htp.com> Cc: paul@FreeBSD.ORG, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: SCO and high prices Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9508221533.T1082-0100000@kryten.atinc.com> In-Reply-To: <199508221839.OAA24912@mail.htp.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
i have added chat to the cc: list. lets take all follow ups there rather than continue in hackers. what i tried and failed is to use these quotes from the article to highlight the thinking of some managers....a manager here pointed this article out to me. (guess he missed the part about celestial software selling servers for $15-$30 K to large corporations....servers made from free software....add some nicely printed docs, training, telephone support, and suits....viola.) On Tue, 22 Aug 1995, dennis wrote: > >In reply to Jonathan M. Bresler who said > >> > >> [snip] > >> > >> ....Last year, when the Santa Cruz Operation raised the price of SCO > >> Unix, the move caused barely a stir among the company's users. The > >> reason: Because SCO's products were significantly cheaper than Novell's > >> and Hewlett-Packard's, some technology managers had a hard time > >> convincing management that the SCO products were on a par with those of > >> other vendors. But at a higher price, SCO's product gained respect. > >> > >> [snip] > >> [end] > >> > >> > >> perhaps this is the attitude that dennis and others have been > >> referring to--if i dont pay a lot, i dont get squat. (can we sell these > >> people "Fresh Air" ?? ). without a high dollar price tag and an > >> acceptable name, the just cant deal with it. > >> > > > First of all, this is NOT the attitude of Dennis. Dennis has to earn a > living. Dennis is just doing his job. Often you get what you pay for, but it > USUALLY true that you get more when you pay something. pardon me. your attitude??? who's talking about your attitude?? we have recently discussed payware vs freeware in hackers (wrong mailing list) and then i see this article in information week. so i copied some paragraphs verbatim into my mail message. dennis, a LOT of us have jobs that are NOT hacking FreeBSD....just ask around. some of us even have 2 jobs that are not hacking FreeBSD. > I think that your analysis of the above, as well as the author's, is clearly > wrong. SCOs customers didn't wince when they raised their prices because > most of their BIG customer are under contract and the rest of them are so > rich it doesn't matter. SCO doesn't participate in the low end market, so you could be right. i wouldn't know. > you can't compare them to FreeBSD or anything similar. Most large corps > don't like freeware because they can't get anything in writing regarding > continuity or ownership. When I was at NYNEX the auditors would come in and > ask us for receipts. Anything we didn't have receipts for, they'd say to > delete it. > > "But I'm a Programmer", I'd tell them, "I wrote this stuff". The auditors, > or course, would have none of it. you just made my day. this is exactly the type of behavior that i find remarkable. boss pays me to write code. auditor makes me delete it. Sisyphean? > >BSDI used exactly the same argument when they bumped their prices > >recently. > > > > BSDI's problem is that they're trying to set up distribution, and > distributors want deep discounts so they can make a profit. And as they say, > 50% of nothing is nothing. Frankly I think they're making a mistake because > they don't have a general purpose product. > > BSD/386 is not a general purpose product. ?? please, lets continue in chat, if we continue at all. Jonathan M. Bresler jmb@kryten.atinc.com | Analysis & Technology, Inc. FreeBSD Postmaster jmb@FreeBSD.Org | 2341 Jeff Davis Hwy play go. | Arlington, VA 22202 ride bike. hack FreeBSD.--ah the good life | 703-418-2800 x346
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.3.89.9508221533.T1082-0100000>