#Pentium Prices
13 messages in this thread
> And you can buy a Pentium 90 system with a larger drive (but no
> bundled software) for $1,625.
I checked the above claim of yours today with the latest weekly computer
magazines. (This weeks InfoWorld and PC Week of 12 Dec)
Dell would sell me a Pentium/60 8M/270 machine + monitor + small bundle for
$1799.
They would sell a P90 16/540 for $2845. A P75 8/270 for $2279.
The cheapest Acer 90Mhz with a puny bundle (Windows + Quicken) was $2595.
ALR would see a 75Mhz 8/0! (stipped setup) for $1795.
ZEOS would sell a 8/528 + CD + monitor + Windows for $2445.
Micron would sell a 90Mhz 8/527 + monitor + CD for $2,300 (They are very vauge
about memory speed and harddisk speed, and there is no SCSI). They were the
cheapest machine I found.
Now getting to the "name brands". HP will sell a 66Mhz 486 (Minimal bundle)
for $1799. They will sell a 90Mhz with 8/270 for $3279 (Good hardware.
Monitor not included!).
Now I never found a 90Mhz Pentium from _anyone_ for under $2,300. And at the
low end, the bundles did not have very much. w/o monitor, and CD you probably
could shave $300-$450 off the price, putting a stripped machine just under
$2,000 for the very cheapest ones.
The name brands cost well over $3,000 (The name brands had little or no bundled
software, but came with very good hardware bundles, ie. ethernet, etc)
I've seen the benchmarks in the PC magazines and they all say that many Pentium
machines are just crap designs with Pentiums slapped on them (Many have heat
problems, etc). While the most expensive are not nearly always the fastest,
the very cheapest rarely held up to any real use and used slower disks, slower
RAM, cheap construction, etc.
I haven't heard anyone say that HP would get forced out of the PC business.
They seem to be doing okay with their price structure. There are always people
that are willing to pay for some feature of a brand name, either safety,
quality, prestige, fear, loyalty, etc. HP has them, as does IBM, and Apple.
Where did you see a P90 with large harddrive for $1,625? That must either be a
world class bargin, or a case of you-get-what-you-pay-for. I don't consider a
put-it-together from Computer Shopper to be a real case, as the average person
would never do that. (You and I would, but 98% of the public would be in over
their heads)
Perhaps the price you quoted was run on a spread sheet on a Pentium and it got
the math wrong! <grin>
Intel Inside/Don't Divide.
Oh well!
What very few people realize is that except for IBM and Compaq and maybe a
few select others, everyone outsources their motherboards. Many are
actually Intel built OEM MBs and cases.
-Jonathan
// Amiga online via Autopilot. MAC Quadra 900 and
\X/ 486 emulation. E-Mail: jonathanb@delrina.com
> What very few people realize is that except for IBM and Compaq
> and maybe a few select others, everyone outsources their motherboards.
> Many are actually Intel built OEM MBs and cases.
Many are, (which _really_ torks Compaq off!), but many more are built by
Asian companies and put together here.
Note all the hassles with venders not building boards like Intel speced
and they now have serious heat problems. Some venders have had to add
extra fans, some take their chances. The magazines are full of reports
of problems with this.
Of course, most of the name brand names (Compaq, Dell, even Gateway), use
ZIF sockets, and cool well, but others run _very_ close to the edge.
— Andrew
"They were the cheapest machine I found."
What do you want me to do, Andrew? Send you my invoice? If you buy retail,
you pay retail. If you buy wholesale, you pay less. Heck, just about anyone can
establish a corporate sales account with CompUSA and get at least another 10
points off their retail floor price.
I bought my P90 system from an integrator and $1,625 is their base price with
the spec's I quoted earlier.
Take a look through Computer Reseller News and I'm sure you'll find plenty of
comparable prices.
Jerry
> What do you want me to do, Andrew? Send you my invoice?
No, I trust you. 🙂
> If you buy retail, you pay retail. If you buy wholesale, you pay
> less. Heck, just about anyone can establish a corporate sales
> account with CompUSA and get at least another 10 points off
> their retail floor price.
You hold up the price you paid as why Apple can't fight the PC on price. Yet
you compare retail for the Apple vs. a "corporate sales account price"
wholesale for the PC. That's great for _your_ sale, but has little bearing on
the overall market because most people don't do what you do!
Take the average homeowner who wants to buy their kid a computer or wants to do
"multimedia". They will go into a store or mail order a system from a
magazine. This probably accounts for greater than 95% of
non-business/non-educational sales. Most people just don't bother to become
"corporations" to get a good personal computer deal!
To be fair, you can get Macs wholesale for the corporate and educational
markets also. Duh.
Your "wholesale" Pentium price, is just as unfair as if I used an Apple
employee discount to buy a Mac at half off and offered that price up as why
Macs are better! (I'm not an employee, but if I were…). You have to compare
the prices that the average person could get without trying very hard.
Cheers!
—- Andrew
I think we've moved into a different realm here and are debating the best way
to buy as opposed to true price differentials.
From my perspective, everyone and anyone has the ability to avoid going onto
the retail floor of Joe's Computers and paying top dollar. If they choose not
to becuase it's "too much effort", that is their decision.
Of course these same people are probably paying more than they have to for
just about everything else they purchase – and that too is their decision.
The reality that Machine A is less expensive than Machine B is not obviated
because someone decides to pay more than they have to for Machine A.
Jerry
> From my perspective, everyone and anyone has the ability to avoid going
>onto the retail floor of Joe's Computers and paying top dollar. If they
>choose not to becuase it's "too much effort", that is their decision.
If they don't even know that they can lie and get a special corporate
wholesale price it's hardly a choice. Besides, if everyone, or even large
numbers of people, started doing what you did, prices would rise. Such
special bargains can only exist when few people use them, and are only
worthy on their own to sellers when those sellers get huge orders.
Paul – wearing my black construction paper funeral suit
"Besides, if everyone, or even large numbers of people, started doing what you
did, prices would rise."
Huh? Those lower prices are usually offered because the vendors anticipate
that you will be placing a lot of orders with them. Thus, among many other
factors, the money the spend on customer acquisition is saved in your case. Any
good businessman would far prefer to have the continuing business of a single
customer rather than one-shot sales to a multitude.
CompUSA, for example, gets all of our Apple business because we get a lower
price from them than we do Apple under their Developer's Program. We also get
faster delivery and better service.
But there just ain't no way that I'm going to on the retail floor and buy for
almost twenty points more.
PC stuff and software I buy from other places because I can get better
inventory and better prices. But here again I am consistent in my purchasing.
From my own experience as a mass marketer, this is common behavior: you
continue to buy where the selection is greatest, the price lowest and the
service adequate or better.
To a retailer, that's a fair bargain and well worth the additional discounts.
Jerry
CompUSA has lower prices on Apple stuff than their developer's
program? Hee! Just the other day, an Apple evangelist was trying to
sell me on the Partner program, where you pay an additional $1500 a
year to be a special friend and get some real support and into any
beta program… he tried to tell me that the cost might easily be
offset by the discounts on hardware.
"CompUSA has lower prices on Apple stuff than their developer's program?"
They're just about the same, but . . .
When you deal with the Apple Developer's Program for merchandise,
you have to prepay in full . . . and your orders have the absolute
*lowest* priority, there is no way to check on your order status and
there is no right of return.
You can get stuck – and lots of people have – with several thousand
dollars tied up for merchandise that doesn't ship for months.
It isn't worth it. I finally dropped my subscription to the Apple
Developer's Program last year. There just wasn't enough in it to
justify the continually rising fees. If you need the code resources,
you can subscribe to the CD-ROM series alone for about a hundred a
year.
> I think we've moved into a different realm here and are debating
> the best way to buy as opposed to true price differentials.
> From my perspective, everyone and anyone has the ability to avoid
> going onto the retail floor of Joe's Computers and paying top
> dollar. If they choose not to becuase it's "too much effort", that
> is their decision.
Yea, but your _original_ point was that the Mac was doomed to be be a
non-player in the real world because they are more expensive. I asked
you to back it up. You quoted PC prices the average person (read
98%) does not use.
I maintain that the price that a person walking into a store could pay
would have the low end PowerPC's as very competitive to similar
powered PC macines in price.
You changed the discussion to how _you_ bought a computer and said
that anybody stupid enough to pay more got what they deserved. I
just think the deal you got is not typical and therefor has no
influence on the survival of the Mac in the market.
Oh well. Could be worse. Could be raining….
Cheers!
—- Andrew
"Yea, but your _original_ point was that the Mac was doomed to be be a
non-player in the real world because they are more expensive."
I don't think that was the intent of my words. The Macintosh is
basically a non-player to begin with. It's a niche machine with 11%
of the market and even that share is shrinking. Part of the reason is
that there are a lot of bright people in the world who will not pay a
premium for a slower machine that is only marginally easier to use.
(And, lest ye forget, I own a lot of Macintoshes.)
"I just think the deal you got is not typical and therefor has no influence on
the survival of the Mac in the market."
To claim that a widely advertised price is "not typical" is disingenuous. I
can buy it at that price. You can buy it at that price. Anyone who reads the
advertisement can buy it at that price.
The reality is that most people don't price shop to begin with – and they pay
for not being willing to take the time to do so. Most business people do price
shop – and they save money in return.
The market, in my opinion, says it all. Macintosh has a firm – but not
inviolable grip – on the desktop publishing market. Everywhere else, it just
hasn't made much of an impression. With every major application now available
for Intel based machines, I don't see Apple as being in a position to gain a
whole lot of marketshare, the PowerPC not withstanding. Yes, Apple is currently
one of the five largest manufacturers of personal computers, but that's today,
not forever.
I'm not for or against Apple or anyone else. I'm just as comfortable
working with Windows or the Mac OS or whatever tools are available to
me. In the last two years, the majority of our machine purchases have
been Intel-based for the simple reason that paying a premium of any
kind for Macintoshes just doesn't make sense any more. With
Windows95, I personally feel that the last vestiges of the Mac's ease
of use will simply become a non-issue. The task facing Apple is to
compete against a universe of commodity like machines with no clearly
discernible advantage for themselves.
Frankly I don't think Apple is capable of doing that. It's
noteworthy that first announced Apple cloner is a start-up company
and not one of the established producers. Obviously no one with
experience in the business wants to invest the resources to
manufacture and market Mac clones. In my opinion, there's a lot of
weight in that message.
And the reality that comparing wholesale for one and retail for the
other is a technique that doesn't prove anything but the willingness
of a person to win an argument at any cost.