[filmscanners] RE: Digital Darkroom Computer Builders?

["Laurie Solomon" <laurie@advancenet.net>]

>It is indeed greed, but it won't bite Microsoft, because all companies do
>it, not just Microsoft.

You may be right that it is a common practice; but that does not mean that
it cannot come back to bite Microsoft.  Enron engaged in practices that
apparently many Fortune 500 companies had been engaging in and it came back
and bite them and a certain percentage of the other companies.

Epson has exhibited similar attitudes and practices and has faced serveral
consumer revolts by some of their heavy users as well as a lose in
credibility with respect to their claims and literature. It did not kill
them but it did put a crimp in their functioning causing them to spend on
things that they had not intended to to offset the bad mouthing and the
switch away from OEM supplies to third party inks and papers.

-----Original Message-----
From: filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Anthony Atkielski
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2002 9:50 PM
To: laurie@advancenet.net
Subject: [filmscanners] Re: Digital Darkroom Computer Builders?


Laurie writes:

> If he is correct and it is a matter of some
> internal switch, I would be inclinded to
> agree that this is a bit of greed and consumer
> be damned on the part of Microsoft which may
> come back to bite it ...

It is indeed greed, but it won't bite Microsoft, because all companies do
it, not just Microsoft.

I once worked for a vendor of proprietary computer systems that had a 2000%
mark-up on memory for the systems (yes,  you read correctly!).  I know of
vendors that include hardware or software switches to _slow down_ computer
systems so that they can sell a cheap version of a system; in other words,
same hardware and software, but with the switch set to "run slow," and a
price tag that provides only a 50% margin, instead of a 95% margin.

So everyone does it.

And I take for granted that it is just a switch in the software, because
that's almost invariably how it is done.  It's too expensive to maintain
multiple code bases, so companies write just one and then turn things on and
off with easy-to-change switches.



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------
Unsubscribe by mail to listserver@halftone.co.uk, with 'unsubscribe
filmscanners'
or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title
or body

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe by mail to listserver@halftone.co.uk, with 'unsubscribe 
filmscanners'
or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or 
body