Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 01:34:05 -0400 From: Mike Tancsa <mike@sentex.net> To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Cc: jkh@time.cdrom.com Subject: Re: Price of FreeBSD (was On Holy Wars...) Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.19970417013405.00ba9290@sentex.net> In-Reply-To: <4146.861250482@time.cdrom.com> References: <Your message of "Wed, 16 Apr 1997 21:15:05 CDT." <199704170215.VAA15005@argus>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
At 09:14 PM 4/16/97 -0700, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: >> i'll add another few items to my list from last night... >> >> 1). chop the price in half to $19.95. > >When he >raised his BSD/OS prices, despite all the public outcry about what >evil nasty people they were for doing so, unit sales went UP (as, >obviously, did their profit margins). He was recently telling me that >even he didn't believe it and told the marketing department that they >were out of their trees if they thought increasing the price would >increase sales, but they convinced him to try it anyway and and lo and >behold, they were right and he was wrong! Although I agree price and sales dont always inversely correlate, there are other mitigating factors as well: i.e. the general increase of the people and companies being on the Internet. I suspect that (and the fact that BSD/OS an excellent product) had more to do with BSD sales rather than just people's perception of quality correlating to price. However, I am sure some market segments would be more prone to this than others. A lot of our really big corp customers who look to expand their net presence ask us for recommendations. When we tell them about FreeBSD they look at us funny when we tell them its free... Typically, their response is "You mean I am going to trust my million dollar a week business to some free software ? No way! Whats the number for SUN again ?" I suppose however, if we told them FreeBSD was in fact $2000, plus another $1000 a year for fixes, they would probably seriously consider it. However, our smaller business customers are quite open to it. To them, what matters is that it works, is reasonably priced, and is secure. For them, shaving $20 off the price is not an issue. ---Mike ********************************************************************** Mike Tancsa (mike@sentex.net) * To do is to be -- Nietzsche Sentex Communications Corp, * To be is to do -- Sartre Cambridge, Ontario * Do be do be do -- Sinatra (http://www.sentex.net/~mdtancsa) *
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?3.0.1.32.19970417013405.00ba9290>