Stainless Steel Rat wrote:
> On paper, maybe. The difference between Sony and Aiwa is very much like
> the difference between Ford and Lincoln.
NO. That is simply not correct. Not only that, but the analogy simply does not
apply. If you had said Ford and Mercury, the analogy would be closer, but you
would still be incorrect.
Aiwa is a separate company. They have their own designers, buy their components
from whom they please and often make products that while doing the same thing,
from the stand point of design and innards have nothing to do with Sony.
What you are saying sounds like because most mini systems all look similar they
are made by one company. Everyone "steals" from everyone else. If Sony hadn't
invented the mini disc, there would never be Sharp MD products.
If you use that reasoning in reality there would only be Sony MD regardless of
the components and style.
No company makes all of the components in their product these days. They either
contract out or simply by from other manufactures. If you don't have enough use
for a particular component, it will often be cheaper for you to purchase them
from someone else than to manufacture them.
The company that only makes widgets can mass produce them and sell hundreds of
millions of widgets to other companies. In the process getting their cost per
widget down very low.
Suppose you make products that use widgets. But you only sell about a million
units a year of stuff that has a widget in it. If you bought the raw materials,
dies, and possibly licensing rights to make those million widgets they might cost
you a dollar a widget.
But the Widget company specializes in widgets. The buy hundreds of times more of
the raw material than you can. So right off the bat their cost for raw material
is less. Also since they only make widgets they can afford the fastest widget
making machines.
You may find that it is not practical to buy machines that make hundreds of
millions of widgets a year when you only need a million. You capital investment
will take too long to recover.
So you go to the Widget Company. It costs the widget company ten cents a unit.
They sell it to you for twenty cents. You are still saving eighty cents over
what it would be for you to buy the equipment, raw materials and hire skilled
workers to make your own widgets.
Now let me give you a real example. Hewlett Packard sells computers with CD
burners in them. They say "CD Writer" on them, just like HPs. But they are
totally different units than the HP CD Writer you buy separately.
You check your computer to see what it thinks the drive is and surprise it says
Mitsumi!! The Mitsumi drive can not even read software designed specifically for
the firmware in an HP CD Writer!
Evidently Mitsumi can mass produce and sell CD burners for less than it costs HP
to make genuine HP CD Writers.
LAS
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