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Re: Dell and Microsoft Kiss Under the Table?

On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 18:23:16 +0100, Roy Schestowitz wrote:

>> I suspect the reason for the lower price is that the windows machines
>> are sold in mass quantity and the "Open PC" models are somewhat
>> non-standard at the moment. Both manufacturing and support are
>> different than usual for Dell so this might explain the price
>> difference.
> 
> I don't buy your argument; sorry about that...
> 
> Toss hard-drive down the bin, bundle empty Maxtor hard-drive to package.
> Now, was that _so_ hard? If the will is there, practical changes will
> follow.

You really don't undestand the manufacturing business, do you?

There are a set amount of costs in any large manufacturing process just to
start the process.  Those costs have to be built into the expected number
of machines sold.  If it costs $100,000 to setup, and you expect to sell
1,000,000 of that product line, that that's a cost of 10 cents added to
each PC. If, however, you expect to sell 1,000 then that's a cost of $10
added to each PC.

I dont' know what Dell's costs are, but you have to figure R&D (the
machines are uniquely designed, they're not just rebadged machines from
other lines), Training (in the shop floor, sales, and support), Marketing
(while they don't seem to be doing a lot of marketing for the n series,
they have to have web pages designed, brochures printed, etc..).

All those costs are amortized over the number of machines you sell, and low
volume product lines have higher fixed costs than high volume ones.
  

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