>I propose the "rarely" here is a function of the company in question. >Even Apple falls into this category for they did not design every thing >about everything they sell either. To that point, there is rarely a >company worth much more than they are charging across most industries. >=)
The issue is not whether a company designs or produces everything they sell. It is whether they select, qualify, integrate, continue to monitor quality and support that element as their own. Digital did not produce all the printers that they shipped as "Digital", but each printer that you bought from Digital was brought into the printer engineering group, had filters and software written for it for each operating system that was going to support it, and then had testing and sign-off for that printer. That work and overhead typically made that "DEC Printer" (which might have shipped with the Printronix manual set still inside) more expensive than if you bought it right from Printronix. On the other hand, if you bought it from DEC you had the right to expect it would work with the rest of DEC's environment. Of course just because you had the right to expect that did not always mean the stupid printer actually worked,...but it often was close. :-) Ever wonder why graphics people like Apple stuff? Because the colors you see brought in through an Apple scanner are probably the same hues you see on an Apple screen and are reflected properly on an Apple printer. Want to do the same thing with Microsoft or Linux? Get out your Pantone color guide, at least three different manuals and two six packs of beer, because you will need the beer. md _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
