Re: does anyone have list price of 1.2 gig drive handy?

[Don Whiteside <dwhite@shadow.net>]

On Tue, 20 Jun 1995, Sean Chou wrote:

> > >this to me is an idiotic comment. A 1.2 gigabyte 2.5" disk is a pretty
> > >amazing gizmo, I find it perfectly reasonable to be paying $150/meg for
> > >something at this cutting edge of technology.
> 
> Actually, I find this an idiotic comment.  If the drive is sold
> at $750 in quantity, there is no reason for us to pay over twice
> that except for the fact that some idiots are willing to pay the
> price (and probably have their department's money at their
> disposal).

Precisely. If the drives _were_ in fact the price IBM wants for them, it 
would be once thing. However the real inflation in this equation is:

(1) Injection molded case
(1) unusual AMP connector
(1) piece of cable.

In any quantity, these things must cost IBM all of $30 to make, and 
that's being real generous. But IBM takes a drive they sell ALONE for 
~$800 to resellers and puts a plastic case around it to make it _$1800_. 
I'm familiar with _value_ added, but this would be, what? Mortgage added?