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

[Randal Whittle <whittle@chaph.usc.edu>]

> 
> "It seems IBM's inept management still remains in control of one area
> at IBM -- pricing."
> 
> 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. Of course I know I can get
> a giant power hungry 1 gig disk for $350, but that is not what I need
> -- if I needed that I wouldn't have a thinkpad in the first place!

	I couldn't agree with this.

	The 1 Gig Hard Drives I've seen are small, 3.5", less-than-1/2-
height little items.  Furthermore, they go for the $350-ish you mention.

	Now I agree that what we want is a smaller drive for our notebook
machines--in a 2.5" factor, and I don't argue that it would typically cost
more--but at nearly $1,795, 5 to 6 TIMES as much? 

	Clearly, this is *way* overboard.  2 times--good.  3 times--okay.  I
think it not unreasonable to pay about $1 per meg for a specialty-type
drive in a market where the going price is 35 to 40 cents per meg or less.
But paying almost twice that premium at $1.80 per meg is pretty ridiculous.

	IBM Marketing (which generally oversees price setting) has regularly
shown themselves to be pretty inept.  This is just yet another example.
Sometimes I wonder how the engineers who design these wonderful toys
(the TP's are clearly winners--great products in a competetive marketplace)
still have a job, given the masterful job of pricing the other bozos do.

	Anyone care to hazard a guess or make a list of the *many* items
they might have sold a *lot* more of (and presumably still made a profit)
if they had just priced them more reasonably?  The TV Tuner comes to
mind--I bought it when it was less than $400, thumbed my nose at it
when it was over $1,000.

-----                                          ____________________________
Randy Whittle    whittle@usc.edu               |    Making South-Central  |
USC Graduate School of Business (Fight on 'SC!)|  L.A. a better place by  |
-Counselor, USC Business Expansion Network     | helping small businesses |
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