volume discounts (was RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] AT&T tiered pricing...)

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Fri, 2 Aug 2002, Spurling, Shannon wrote:

> The smaller chips and resistors and wires have not changed in
> price in the last 20 years. Not even the surface mount
> components have changed that much.

By "not changed", though, do you mean in nominal dollars?  If so,
the real cost would be down by a factor of about 2.  Which is
nothing compared to, say, hard drives, but something in the big
scheme of things.  (To put it another way, when a geezer like me
compares the power of todays PCs with a vintage 1984 Mac system that
cost about $1500, I should really compare with something today that
costs closer to $3K, which makes the comparison even more 
unbelievable.)

[snip]

> A certain amount of volume has to flow for all of these to
> become cost effective, as Microsoft has painfully found out from
> their recent entry into the game console market....

What's the pain there?  I thought they had managed to dump a goodly 
number of units out there, albeit at a greater cost than they would
have liked.

jking

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