Conference 7.286::digital

    re> Charging more for VMS/OSF memory than NT memory
    They're clueless; don't give them any ideas.
    
    After one of the Worksystems pricing committtees priced the 256 color
    ZLXe1 board at $1000, or $4 a color, couldn't you just see their eyes
    light up when engineering told them ZLXe3 could do 16.7m colors?  ;-)
    kb

    
    	It's going to get a whole lot more interesting than what you
    are alluding to - take a look at the new PCBU announcement on
    the Prioris machines. For an smp baby running everything you have an
    $8700 price tag. 
    	Methinks Alpha is getting on the bus.
    
    		the Grayhawk

    Especially considering the Prioris HX and AlphaServer 1000 4/200 share
    many of the same components ...... hefty premium for that Alpha 

    the NT group has worked hard to make Alpha pricing for NT systems more
    competitive with the Intel world.  This is as opposed to VMS and OSF
    which must compete in the HP, IBM, SUN world.  This pricing is a good
    first step.  We still have considerable work to do with our
    AlphaStation (mustang, avanti) pricing.
    
    FWIW, we are priced extremely competitively against Compaq, this is
    very exciting and a great opportunity for us (again, in the Server
    world, not in the workstation world).
    
    ken b.
    

    Maybe the extra CPU also contains an extra license (some more untits
    to the base license I mean ...) 
    
    Might it be that the WNT upgrade license is somewhat cheaper than the 
    other two? 
    
    Regards, 
    
    Arnold

 >   Maybe the extra CPU also contains an extra license (some more untits
 >   to the base license I mean ...) 
    
 >   Might it be that the WNT upgrade license is somewhat cheaper than the 
 >   other two? 
    
Yes, I understand this but why is it so?

 >  Regards, 
 >   
 >   Arnold

But, from a functionality point of view, these operating systems provide 
nothing more for my customers. 

In fact, from a perception point of view, NT is very shiny and new. From a 
management acceptance point of view, its also an easier sell. 

Yet, over a 4 processor system, we are asking for $20K dollars more to run 
Unix or VMS on the SAME box.

Thanks,
John

Windows NT/Alpha systems should be competitive with other Windows NT systems
on the market. The price tag for Alpha compared to Intel is currently too high
as it is. The real threat to your OpenVMS and OSF/1 market is really Intel,
and not Windows NT/Alpha. If customers don't want OpenVMS or OSF/1 because it's
priced higher than Windows NT, they could move to Intel anyway.

If Alpha is going to have a future, I think we need to go into volume.
Today the price prevents this in a very effective way.

Note that Compaq plans to sell 250,000 servers next year with good profit.
How many Alpha servers do we sell in a year?

Olav

Why does Ford Motor Company charge a lot extra for what's essentially 
the same car when it's a Mercury as opposed to just a Ford?

As previously mentioned, the Alpha NT systems must be priced lower 
to compete with Alpha NT on other platforms.  OSF/1 must be priced 
competitively with other Unix platforms, and there's a higher price 
umbrella in that market segment.

--PSW

    >Why does Ford Motor Company charge a lot extra for what's essentially
    >the same car when it's a Mercury as opposed to just a Ford?
    
    "Essentially" is the key.  The Mercury models tend to have more
    features in the base price the the "identical" Ford models.  For
    instance, the Mercury Sable comes with driver/passenger air-bags
    standard while the Ford Taurus only comes with driver air-bag as
    standard and you have to upgrade for the passenger side.  Beyond
    that, the preception is that the Mercury models are built to higher
    tolerances than the same Ford models, I don't know if I believe
    this however.
    
    				-John

    It's not even necessarily true - my husband bought a teeny weeny Tracer
    station wagon instead of the identical Escort station wagon because the
    Mercury nameplate was cheaper for the combination of options he wanted.
    The only noticeable difference between them otherwise was that the
    Mercury one has 1) a different grill, and 2) a different steering wheel
    cover - which Paul actually preferred somewhat since the Ford steering
    wheel cover gets real sticky in hot weather.  (We would have liked to
    have anti-lock brakes too, but that option wasn't available unless we
    bought a much larger (and costlier) car than we otherwise needed.)
    
    /Charlotte

    I happened to walk into an "abuse-the-DEC-VP" session at DECUS/Anaheim
    last week, and I recall one of our VPs getting severely chastised by a
    customer who felt that Alpha pricing for NT should be far closer to
    Alpha pricing for OSF/1...  And many folks clapped loudly after that
    particular diatribe and were imho dissatisfied with the imho inadequate
    answer of our exec.
    

    RE: .11
    
    > customer who felt that Alpha pricing for NT should be far closer to
    > Alpha pricing for OSF/1...  And many folks clapped loudly after that
    
    Did the customer request that the OSF/1 pricing be lowered to match the
    NT pricing, or the NT pricing be raised to match the OSF/1 pricing? :^)
    
    My question may sound foolish, but it isn't really.  Assuming that the
    customer was requesting that we lower our prices, it is not surprising
    that "many folks clapped loudly".  I mean, who doesn't want lower
    prices for the same stuff?  Any time I can con(vince) someone to let 
    me pay less for something I was planning to buy anyway at the higher
    price, I will clap loudly too...
    
    I hope the VP used words like "added value, higher reliability,
    realtime performance, more native applications, better networking" etc
    to answer the question.  If they didn't then the answer was inadequate.
    
    Can you give details of what the VP said, and (again in your opinion)
    tell us what answer *would* have satisfied the crowd?
    
    But is it possible that the *only* answer that would not have been
    perceived as "inadequate" would have been "You are absolutely right.
    We will never insult you by charging for OSF/1 ever again.  From now
    on Digital will give away every one of our products, and of course we
    will continue to provide installation and all other services for free 
    as well".  I have faced a few crowds, and sometimes that is the only
    answer that will please them.  But I don't think that answer will please
    our stockholders...
    
    -- Ken Moreau

    	The people who want to run more than one operating system on an
    individual Alpha machine are not production users, they are developers.
    A production user doesn't switch operating systems without a very good
    reason.
    
    	It is developers we want to encourage.
    
    	I have no idea of what the actual pricing is, but we should have a
    price for (NT + OSF/1 + VMS) that is not significantly more than
    whatever is the highest priced operating system if bought individually.
    We should probably have a similar policy on compilers - "You pay for
    the GEM back end".
    
    	You could argue that in this way end users are subsidising costs of
    third party software developers, but isn't the only reason for the
    existence of end users to pay for third party software developers?  ;-)