> > Edward O'Callaghan wrote: > > Maybe Sun could just bring the price down of the Ultra 25 workstation > > to around the Ultra 24 one ! *Hint* *Hint*. > > It's hard to change the price of a computer you no longer sell because > the CPU's are out of production. > > -- > -Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersmith at sun.com > Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering
If Sun would have changed their pricing policy (at least) 7 years ago, maybe the SPARC desktop machines would still be a living cash cow, rather than a dead bird which had to be EOL'ed because it *costs* Sun more money to keep it alive, than to kill it. Think about it: Dell sells unchanged 3rd party stuff for 1 $, Sun puts in lots of sophisticated effort (which costs Sun a lot) and *tries* to sell their stuff at $1.15 $. And on the potential customer's side many deciders think they can save by buying from Dell, at $1. That's not only a milkmaiden calculation and effectively a waste of money for those deciders' companies, but also for Sun . And Sun's workstations have been priced by somebody who must have been drunk all day long. --->> Sun is responsible for having killed its own 'W' from the former "SUNW". <<--- p.s. Let's have a quick look at the SunBlade 150's parts prices as of N O W: For example, let's assume we bought our box (as I did) in the lowest level config available back then until spring 2006 (128MB mem, 1x40GB disk, CD-Rom, no DVD, PGX64 onboard). Let's only buy a second IDE disk and a DVD-ROM to replace the CD-ROM, Ahh, well: Let's also stuff in some memory - aren't mem prices very low nowadays? All those parts are commodity PC parts, no changes by Sun are inside. You get exactly the same 100% identical components at fry's around the corner, any corner (except that they don't have a 40GB disk even LISTED anymore). - commodity IDE hdd - commodity ide DVD-Rom - commodity PC-133 or PC-100 ECC SDRAM Now let us see what Sun charges for those parts (which you can get *new* from almost any shop around the world for less than $100 all together: http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/validateUser.do?target=Systems/SunBlade150/components http://shop.sun.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/Sun_NorthAmerica-Sun_Store_US-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewData-Start/1765783105;pgid=uXLYQPmyeKNSR0s7XfVfvw1V00009pauepyb;sid=OjY_25o-ZrA_3tKX8HV33nWjefxt2ttwIMt-lYDDAbgG1hyrIig=?JumpTarget=ViewRequisition-View&=&=&= #370-6626 Spare 40.0 GB 7200 rpm Ultra ATA/100 Disk Drive for the Sun Blade 150; Sun Fire V100 Save This Item | Remove Update Price $ 230.00 $ 230.00 #370-4439 16X DVD ROM for Sun Blade 100 Save This Item | Remove Update Price $ 275.00 $ 275.00 #370-4150 Spare 256 MB SDRAM DIMM for the Sun Blade 100, 150 Save This Item | Remove Update Price $ 200.00 $ 200.00 #370-4150 Spare 256 MB SDRAM DIMM for the Sun Blade 100, 150 Save This Item | Remove Update Price $ 200.00 $ 200.00 #370-4150 Spare 256 MB SDRAM DIMM for the Sun Blade 100, 150 Save This Item | Remove Update Price $ 200.00 $ 200.00 #370-4150 Spare 256 MB SDRAM DIMM for the Sun Blade 100, 150 Save This Item | Remove Update Price $ 200.00 $ 200.00 NOTE: Items selected are available to ship within 12 business daysCall Sun. Taxes and shipping will be calculated when you check out. Subtotal $ 1,305.00 pp.s. That person wasn't drunk, 'must have been on dope. I'm well aware, that this list is the wrong place for either hardware offering related discussions, or for marketing or business decision related ones. But your response has been an ignorant hit into all your existing and previous customer's faces!! (I myself paid EUR 1800,- for above low config SB150 PLUS the then 17% VAT!!!). Think about it. Well, okay, Sun's pricing policies did *partially* improve (now, finally, for some newer x86 based systems), yes. But things like above should not be possible at all. I will not post further replies to this thread, because we are on the wrong list alias, here this stuff is OT.
