Re: When is the last time you got money back from Microsoft?

On Sun, 16 Apr 2006 01:08:48 GMT, Mitch <mitch@xxxxxxxxx> chose to
bless us with the following wisdom:

In article <h701429cc4rciu07arua6jhjuatibfrkjh@xxxxxxx>, Mayor of
R'lyeh <mayor.of.rlyeh@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Microsoft doesn't grossly overcharge people in the first place.


Huh.
Several governments and courts have disagreed strongly on exactly that
point.

I seem to recall the cases being the exact opposite. They thought
Microsoft was grossly undercharging in order to kill the competition.
Of course I also remember a judge who gave numerous interviews
declaring Microsoft guilty before the trial even started and who slept
through long periods of the trial. I also remember an appeals court
who said expediency was more important than justice. One wonders if
they'd like to be tried by the same standards.
I do recall a group of Naderites trying to inject the claim that
Microsoft charged too much for Word by acting as if its MSRP were its
actually selling price. That got shot down when it was pointed out
that the Word and Wordperfect's MSRP were within $25 of each ohter and
that Word was available for $99 in a bundle that Microsoft called
'Home Essentials'.


But to ask directly, Microsoft is a large company with a large customer
base. As their product has become more common, and the range of
hardware issues smaller, and the user base has increased, the price has
gone up -- significantly -- each time it is released.

The price of Windows has remained largely the same over the years. You
must be thinking of MacOS X where you have to pay $130 for every
Service Pack.


Common and standard and legal business practice would have the cost of
the product going DOWN.

Actually common and standard legal business practice would have the
cost reaching a point where Microsoft was willing to sell and the
public was willing to pay and remaining there until something changed.
The economic ignorance of those who kept insisting that Microsoft's
prices should ever be going downward was simply appalling.
If you've got an item that you can make for $1 and sell for $10 you
sell it for $10. If your cost drops to $.50 but you can still get $10
you don't drop your price.


How can it go up?

It didn't.

How can it even stay steady?

You're assuming that costs and prices have anything to do with one
another. I'd suggest at least sitting in on an ECON 101 somewhere.


They produce less in the package than in the past (like the large
manual).
They have a more-established and more-influential distribution system.
They have more agreements with retailers and service producers than in
the past.
They have a firmer grasp of what their OS really needs to be to sell
the next version.
They still have a firm hold on the mindshare of most of their users.
They don't even have to convince users to upgrade.

All of which is irrelevant for setting prices.


It really looks liek they have been doing much less work and charging
more for it.

Except that they aren't.

So how can you suggest that Microsoft isn't grossly overcharging their
customers?


Mainly because they aren't. How can you suggest that Apple isn't when
they've made you pay $130 five times for the same OS?



--
"We believe Internet Explorer is a really good browser.
Internet Explorer is my browser of choice."

Steve Jobs
.

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