#VOTE ON OED PRICE HERE!
31 messages in this thread
Tim,
I wasn't suggesting that OUP reduce the functionality of the CD so they
could sell it at a lower price. I feel that they could generate so much
more money with a reasonable price that they would be able to improve on
the functionality with all the new found money!
Sorry I can't help your nieces and nephews. Maybe someday …
Rgds
Jan
Jan,
>>I wasn't suggesting that OUP reduce the functionality of the CD so they
could sell it at a lower price.<<
I realize that you were not suggesting such a course. I merely was pointing
out that thi is a strategy that some publishers or other manufacturers use
to segment their market so the can charge what the market will bear in
different segments and maximize profit. It is prevalent when there is
amajor difference in the resources of the customers, e.g. what a library
can pay versus what an individual can pay.
My main point was that your outlook for immediate unit sales is overly
optimistic. In other words, it doesn't pay at the lower price to buy copies
of the OED for your nieces and nephews becase the don't at this point have
CD drives to play them on. At some point they will and hopefully prices of
CD's will come down generally.
Regards, Tim –
Unfortunately I haven't been following this thread so I can't be sure I am
not duplicating others'comments.
There seem to be two things that will clearly affect the sales of CD-ROM
drives. Firstly price (which is presumably related to volume of sales) and
secondly the availability at modest prices of genuinely useful discs, in
other words the "killer app."
If ever there was such a product then the OED CD-ROM is it! The question
is whether the OED CD-ROM selling at (say) 50 would prove so useful that we
would go out and buy CD-ROM drives (thus lowering prices?) and would there
then be sufficient new buyers to increase the profit for the publishers? A
Catch-22 dilemma exists.
Personally at the present price there is absolutely no chance that I will
purchase, but at 50 I would certainly buy for the sheer joy of it.
Paul
$50? Since getting my drive, I don't believe I've spent that much on any of
the dozen or so disks I've bought since. Most have been in the $29 – $49
range.
But for the OED, I'd ignore the crazed looks my wife would be giving me and
go up to $200. In a second.
Tim,
What disks have you bought in that price range? Are yor sources retail store
or mail order?
Prices seem to be coming down somewhat, but here in NYC prices of hot disks
like Cinemania seem to be $50-$75 in range. A few titles are near the $100
level and Video for Windows is $145. Most of what I've seen in the $25-$40
have been very limited applications or collections of media clips.
Regards,
Tim E.
Believe it or not, my best source for software and hardware has been…ham
radio shows! I pride myself on being a generation _behind_. For instance,
the Grolier Multimedia '92 encyclopedia runs about $100. Night Owl 6 about
$60. But I can but the last edition – the '91 encyclopedia, or 4.0 – for
less than half. Let's face it, 99% of the reports my son will do in school
are pre-1980, let alone pre-1992.
After that, I go mail order. I've had luck with Sole Source systems. After
that, I trade with other users. In other words, I do what I can to keep my
expenses down, at least until CDROM catches on big time.
And that day is coming fast. I just saw, at our local Sam's Club
wholesaler, 2 MPC systems with CDROM, sound card, and 3 disks
(encyclopedia, Wing Commander/Ultima combo, and another) for $299. Now
_that's_ cheap!
Tim,
I agree with you – the day is coming fast when CD-ROM (or the new, improved
technology that will replace it) will be on everyone's desk/table/nite
stand.
But I'm a little curious …
"And that day is coming fast. I just saw, at our local Sam's Club
wholesaler, 2 MPC systems with CDROM, sound card, and 3 disks
(encyclopedia, Wing Commander/Ultima combo, and another) for $299. Now
_that's_ cheap!" For "MPC systems" – you mean multimedia upgrade kits,
don't you? A "system" in this context, to me anyhow, includes a computer.
(I'm not spliting hairs <<well, maybe just a little>> – I'm leaving for
Sam's with my checkbook!).
TIA
Jan
Tim, like the line: "I pride myself on being a generation _behind_."
However you might consider looking into some of the CD-ROM and CD-ROM-SALES
conference on the various BBS nets. I've seen the mm DOS version of The New
Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia (V 5.0) for as little as $49 in one spot
and under $60 in several.
Course you'd also have to shipping but that shouldn't be too much. Cheers!
I'm a Data General user of long standing. At one point, they had a slogan
'Data General – a Generation Ahead'. I had a t-shirt printed up that said
'Tim Boyer – a Generation Behind', and wore it to the next user's group
convention. Seriously, I do that with mainframes and micros, too. I'm
running a 386/40 with a caching IDE and a 387 that's easily as fast as 75%
of the 486s out there – for half of the price. As soon as the Pentium
becomes popular, I'll upgrade the motherboard to a 486 for $200 or so.
As for the Grolier – let's see, the 1992 edition came out in March '92, so
dealers are starting to dump them in anticipation of being stuck with them
when the '93 comes out. Should be about time to buy….
— Tim –
I don't think so, Tim — Geez, I've been waiting to use that one since I
saw the first Home Improvements episode.
Actually I think your dates are a little out now, as far as the Grolier is
concerned. The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia came out in DOS sometime
in November, Windows was due out in December. It is the NEW DOS multimedia
Grolier that is selling for $50 to $60 on the nets now. Believe me, moving
up to that edition is worth it. Granted your son can make do with old info
on such as the Roman Empire and the discovery of North America, but then
there is the (former) Soviet Union and such. I think some 7,000 articles
were updated for this edition and at $50/$60 compared to perhaps $30 for
the year-old DOS sound and graphics only version, it is well worth the
price difference. I don't sell them, of course, but I do have both and I
won't bother much with the old one anymore. Cheers!
Jim, What is the Version level of the Grolier MultiMedia Encyclopedia
released for DOS in November. Mine is from Software Toolworks, Version
5.0, and has a Copyright 1992, Grolier, Inc. Is that the same product as
you're talking about. I'd like to sell it and get the Windows version or
Encarta. I don't want to mislead someone if it's an old version. Thanks,
Jim
Re: Version number of Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia.
Jim, my version number is 5.01 and is the "true" Grolier, by that I only
mean that it carries the Grolier label and comes in the Grolier box. As I
understand it the label and the packaging is the only difference between
Grolier and Software Toolworks (based on a press release from Software
Toolworks).
As for the version difference, your V. 5.0 vs. my V. 5.01, I wouldn't worry
about it. It could be just the Grolier label itself. It could also just be
the default screen colors, etc. As I recall STW seems to like red, Grolier
prefered blue. Certainly .01 doesn't indicate a huge difference. And all
the Grolier mm encyclopedias I've seen in network ads have also been V.
5.0. I don't think you would be misleading anyone at all. BTW, the lowest
price I've seen for it has been $49 U.S. plus shipping, the others have
been around $59-$60 plus shipping. Cheers!
Hmmm, I thought I saw NGME this summer. Maybe not. Anyway, if it's that
good, I'll certainly look at breaching my principles and buying a current
product. Thanks for the recommendation!
— Tim —
Tim, you may be right about the earlier release of NGME. My wife keeps
telling me I CAN be wrong, but of course I don't believe her <G>. I know I
started seeing ads for it shortly before COMDEX and it was still pretty new
when I talked to STW there. That doesn't mean that it wasn't available
before that, of course. I didn't get my update notice until after I
returned from COMDEX as I recall.
At any rate all that is pretty moot, I suppose. It seems to be
substantially updated in terms of text but the mm stuff is nothing to write
home about, certainly not compared to what Microsoft Bookshelf or Compton's
Interactive have or that Encarta promises. Cheers!
Tim,
There are between 3,000,000 and 5,000,000 (take Rich Bower's figures, or
mine) already in the market.
If you will kindly review Mr. Richard Day's insightful clipping from a
Canadian newspaper (quoting an English paper), in his message #36281 of Jan
8, 1993, the article and Mr. Day said:
QUOTE
But, what caught my eye was this: "…at almost $1000 the automated OED is
a third the price of the old-fashioned paper thing. Instead of being on
20,000 pages – that is 66 kilograms of tree – it is on two disks. CDs cost
about $1 each to manufacture and since June Oxford University Press has
sold 137 of the 20-volume OED and 1,000 CD-ROMS."
What? Just 1,000 CD-ROMs in a half-year-and-a-bit? That's BIG sales? The
article also mentions the people who are buying the CD-ROMs are "mostly
people with institutional budgets."
END QUOTE
Even using Rich's figures, OUP has "captured" .00033 of the market!
If you had the time to listen, I could list a substantial number of titles
on CD-ROM that, in my opinion, aren't worth the matches it would take to
melt them, that are selling in the 30,000 and higher range.
If OUP is a business venture as so many of our friends have pointed out,
they aren't exactly setting records. But then, I presume that the
objective of business is to make money–maybe I'm wrong here too?
Best regards
Jan
Jan,
>If you had the time to listen, I could list a substantial number of
titles
>on CD-ROM that, in my opinion, aren't worth the matches it would take to
>melt them, that are selling in the 30,000 and higher range.
You are suggesting that even though the content isn't very impressive, that
they are still selling 30k units? Is the market so starved for input? I
was amused to see a CD at my local software store of Batik cloth patterns
and folk music. Doesn't sound like a real tough job to pull that content
together! Certainly a lot simpler than doing the animation in a Carmen San
Diego.
You said it costs $1 / disc. If I wanted to do a run of 1000 CDs, how much
does it typically cost for all the set-up costs, etc.? (Assuming I have
all 500KB of my data on a tape, ready to go)
(Heck, I've got a few $1000 laying around, maybe I should become a
publisher too :-).
Alan Cobb
Alan,
Yep!
The $1/disc is a bit of an over simplification, but not too much.
If you had 500 Megabyte (you did mean MB, not KB, didn't you?) on the right
kind of tape, you would still have to get pre-master, master, disc art
work, packaging, etc. It could run you from a low of about $3/disc to a
bit more depending on how fancy you get with the artwork.
There are a few books on the market that tell you how and what to do. The
beauty of it is that you couldn't do this in paper, even if you did want to
kill the trees!
By all means! If you got some good stuff, or if you know how to market
less than good stuff, jump in. Become a publisher! If your material is
good, there are several people/companies that will happily produce your
disc for you and pay you a commission on sales. All you do is go to Tahiti
and cash the checks!
Rgds
Jan
Jan, just a point on your quote from a Canadian paper on a story in a Brit
paper: You might want to take a look at the dates involved there.
The quoted article says the OED is on two disks — that means it was the
old DOS version of the original OED and suppliment, not the single disc
Windows version of OED generally being discussed here.
How does that matter? Not much, except that it might mean the figures are
from 1990 or earlier, can't really remember when the original was put on
CD-ROM — have it here somewhere but it isn't important enough to wade
through this mess at the moment <G>.
It would be interesting to know the sales figures for the OED II (Windows,
single disc) in a set period of time.
Conversely it would be interesting to know how many copies of some of the
other top titles (not the bundled ones) sold back in 1990 or whenever the
article refers to. There weren't, for instance, a whole lot of CD-ROM
readers in homes back, not many of the big bulletin boards had them.
(Sorry for the split, Jan — still having problems with OzCIS.)
[>> Continued in next msg]
Jim,
the article in question appeared in the Globe & Mail a week ago Tuesday. It
was sourced from The Guardian News Service (London) and was very specific
in its reference to the OED2, describing it as "one of 1992's publishing
events."
The 2-disc reference may have been an error by the paper, but the content
of the article certainly indicates the sales figures were for 1992 and for
the OED2, not the old DOS version with the supplement disc. I find the
figure of 1,000 copies of OED2 on CD-ROM sold in '92 realistic, given both
the pricing and the fact OUP was very slow in delivering into the sales
channel (I talked with a number of CD-ROM vendors at Comdex in November,
all of whom said they had problems getting inventory from OUP; follow-up
telephone calls in December indicated the problems continued…
Ric
Thanks for the clarification, Ric. I certainly didn't mean to question you
or your posting. It was the "two discs" that caught my eye and attention.
I've had the OED II for a couple of weeks (from OUP in Toronto) and of
course there was only one disc. I do recall that the original was on two
discs. I'm not sure where I got that, from the OUP rep, the press info,
story in either Macleans or Time or in talking to one of the people who
created the original software to put OED on magnetic tape which was done at
the University of Waterloo.
That's interesting about the difficulty in getting inventory — presumably
in the U.S.? I didn't specifically ask about it, but the OED rep in Canada
didn't indicate any problems here. On the other hand I was told that there
was only two review copies available in the country and I could have one
for a couple of weeks. I had the impression the SAS would visit my house if
it wasn't returned promptly and properly. Well, not really. Actually the
woman I spoke to was quite pleasant. But I did insure the heck out of the
parcel when I shipped it from Hamilton to Toronto <G>.
Jim,
>> difficulty in getting inventory ..
yes, the problem was being experienced by US mail order houses. They also
claimed OUP was holding them to a very tight pricing policy of no
discounts. I was quoted a "best case" two- to three-week delivery period if
I ordered.
Out of curiosity, what did OUP Toronto charge? The last time I purchased
anything through them (an SGML reference book), the price was astronomical
(way higher, I later discovered, than I would have paid in the States), and
delivery took nearly three months … oh to be Canadian, eh?!
Ric
Hmmmm, if a mail order firm told me there was a two-three week delivery
period on an item I would strongly suspect that to include the time it
takes for them to order it, receive it and reship it. In other words it is
not an item they stock. I certainly do believe that OUP has a tight pricing
policy, that has always been my understanding. That is one reason why I've
been viewing this thread with some interest. And some amusement.
I would think people would have a better chance of talking Encyclopaedia
Britannica into selling a complete EB for $150 — and I won't hold my
breath for that. I don't disagree with the idea or the arguments put
forward. Jan is a remarkable person who has forgot more than I will ever
know in this area, and who combines that knowledge with smarts and energy
to make it work when I never could. I see OED and EB as brick walls, he
looks around for a ladder that will let him and others climb the walls. I
admire that.
The OUP price in Canada is $1,050 Cdn, about the same as the U.S. price
when you convert I guess. I didn't buy it, I had it for review purposes
only. Maybe someday <G>.
[>> Continued from previous msg]
Frankly I think many average users of the English language would be
disappointed by the OED II — it is first and foremost, an etymological
resource, something which would send most North American's running to their
Webster's.
I've had a copy for perhaps 20 years now (paper, not CD-ROM of course) and
while it is one of my most cherished posessions, I check a cheap Webster's
first, a good Gage Canadian second, specialty dictionaries third if they
are needed and perhaps once or twice a year turn to the OED for
etymological information.
I'd rather see an Encyclopaedia Britannica available for $150 even without
pics, graphics or multimedia, than the OED. Although at that price I'd buy
both. Cheers!
Jim,
Thanks for the clarification. I was not aware of the date of the
article(s). You are probably correct in both your assumptions
and the conclusion you draw.
Now! In the Army, when someone brings up a good idea, that means
they've volunteered for it.
Knowing both you and your fastidious scholarship, would you be so
kind as to research this point and enlighten us all? WATIA (We
all thank you in anticipation!)
Again, your observations and comments are correct. It is mildly
interesting to learn that "raunchy" originally meant "neat, shipshape,
polished" as opposed to it's current meaning, just a "Madonna" had
religious connotations, and certainly not the raunchy (current tense) that
we relate to today. I have always been curious; do Etymologists willfully
change the meanings of words or do they just catalog the phenomena? My
Chinese friends think the colloquial was created to keep them from learning
English. After all, how can you "chop a tree up" once you have "chopped it
down"?
Best regards
Jan
Best regards
Jan
I'VE volunteered for something? Darn I thought I stopped doing that when I
got out of the army (ours, First Regiment, Royal Canadian Horse Artillery,
1963)
At the moment I'm looking into really important things (to we Canadians) —
how to get the heck somewhere warm for a week or two. And still waiting
for my new Pioneer 604X — any day now I'm told.
Tell your Chinese friends to vacation up here sometime. They'd love our
East Coasters telling them to "Go ahead, back up!" when they're parking
their cars. Or the fact that we go "Down East" from Toronto to Halifax,
despite Halifax being more northerly than Toronto. And of course there is
our infamous "Eh?" Cheers!
Jan
Your Chinese friends are having you on, as the saying goes, especially if
they are from southern China. Cantonese, and most other dialects of
Chinese, are heavily colloquial in everyday speech, the popularity of new
expressions waxing and waning just about as quickly as they do in my teen
son's English (we speak Cantonese and Mandarin at home here, as well as
English and some other languages, so I guess I can claim some expertise).
Last summer my kids had no problem holding a totally unintelligible
conversation in front of a guy who had just graduated from learning
Cantonese in a US college – the reason it was unintelligible to him was, he
had learned the language "by the book," while they were speaking the
"living" version of it – a bit like, say, a Swiss studying English at
school and then being confronted with a couple of Scots in an Edinburgh
pub…
Ric.
Your Chinese friends are free to say what they wish, but I'd point out
that the world intellectual community has never promoted *Chinese*
languages to any extent. Then there is the pitiful state of their method of
putting their words on paper…
For what it's worth department, —GeM
As I understand things via Britannica salespeople, a complete
Britannica will not soon be available on CD-ROM.
OED and similar exhaustive language studies is not something I wish to
see either on my book shelf or my CD-ROM rack. Why should I have something
around that insults my very surname <hehe>?
Happy Trails, —GeM
Jan
>>There are between 3,000,000 and 5,000,000 (take Rich Bower's figures, or
mine) already in the market.<<
I think here is the crux of the argument. I do not disagree that the price
of the OED should come down. I am arguing that the timing would be somewhat
sloower and the end price somewhat higher. I think $200 in the current
conditions would be about right given that people will spend$50 for what is
junk. I think however the real money will be in providing yearly updates at
say $50 apiece. Imagine everyone looking forward to seeing which words are
admitted to the official language every year. Talk about a market niche.
I have been uncomfortable with your estimate of the installed base of
machines above and that is why I argued that the price adjustment would
take longer. I was waiting to get a source of hard figures before taking on
this point.
The February 1993 issue of Computer shopper quotes a research firm InfoCorp
Intelligence as saying 900,00 CD-ROM drives were shipped in 1992 as opposed
to 650,000 in 1991. I'm not sure of pre-'91 shipments but probably those
were much smaller since the were not yet in consumer outlets and mostly
offered to institutions. The article mentions both SONY and Phillips so the
figures may include CD-I and Tandy's VIS format drives. Also I suspect may
drives shipped in 1991 may not be fully MPC compatible. However, I think
by the end of 1994 we could be approaching 5,000,00 units.
Regards, Tim