Jon wrote: > The primary incentive is the long-term incentive, I don't see how that > would be different between today and in N years. I don't see when it > would ever be sensible to do what you are describing. >
A good while ago, I worked for HP. We priced a product at $34.95. It was profitable against an expected installed base of let's say 1 million units. That was many, many years ago. Since then a couple of things changed. Our initial installed base estimates were off by a factor of probably 10. Instead of 1 million, the base was 10 million. Revenues and profits were hugely related (in a positive correlation) to size of the installed base, meanwhile costs per unit moved in the opposite direction as installed base grew. Hence, if HP did nothing, it would have reaped gigantic windfall profits (windfall vs. initial investment analysis). These numbers have Google-sizes zeros after them. So let's do the customer a favor HP and lower the price, or a least keep it the same. Second-order effects such as consumer goodwill and brand equity would be great. Same product now sells for $55 at Costco. When I was working to get the the $34.95 product out, I believed (and I think this was true) that my organization was one of the best, most capable consumer products companies EVER. Now I feel a sense of shame that it evolved to what it is today. (I left quite some time ago, but still regret what it has become.) So Jon, stay focused please, but by all means be realistic. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/google-appengine/-/yo1TuL6a2gIJ. To post to this group, send email to google-appengine@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to google-appengine+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en.
