[mso] Re: Office 2003 Launch in NYC - an OT grumble :VSMail mx3
- From: "Greg Chapman" <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 09:30:14 -0600
I can justify it on a scale of global markets. Yes, there are different
costs per region based on region alone. Ever deal with Europe's god-awful
Value Added Tax concept and the legal restrictions about what may come
from where and how much of it must be made in this or that European
country? Didja know it's illegal to by a computer in England for use in an
office in Germany? The software faces similar hurdles.
But even better, measure this method of increasing your company footprint
in various other markets. If you've already managed to settle into 85% of
the market space in one market, you know you've a bit of a hold there and
your goal is to reasonably get as many upgraders to pay for it as possible
without eroding that foothold. $420 struck the market managers as the
magic number for this version, right or wrong, and part of that magic
number is to support the ideas in the next paragraph.
Then you have India, a market in which very few of your installed copies
were ones for which you were paid. And the new batch of programmers and
call-center employees are making very good livings for their region. And
how much do they make in U.S dollars? A recent Gartner report indicates
that in the Asian workplaces across the nations, a programmer's average
salary is just shy of $7k US per annum. This also implies that the company
he or she works for is in very good shape locally on the economic scale
but is definitely low on buying power compared to U.S. markets. If
Microsoft wants to increase its footprint in these markets it has to offer
the software and upgrades at locally competitive rates. If those rates
represent losing money, then those more affluent markets get to carry a
larger share of the burden all in the interest of making sure Microsoft
gets the LICENSES installed legally and thus secure the upgrade market,
too.
All Microsoft would have to do to lose the race in those markets and begin
a very sharp decline for the company is to price its products and remove
incentives like free upgrades from those markets. The Linux crowd would be
all over that in no time at all.<g>
Greg Chapman
http://www.mousetrax.com
"Counting in binary is as easy as 01, 10, 11!
With thinking this clear, is coding really a good idea?"
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mso-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:mso-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Anne Robson
> Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 3:16 AM
> To: mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [mso] Re: Office 2003 Launch in NYC - an OT grumble
> :VSMail mx3
>
>
> Hi Dian
>
> Thanks for your input on this which is as ever illuminating and fair.
>
> With respect, though, this still doesn't address the issue of
> differential
> pricing from one country to another. Are you seriously
> trying to say that
> the costed amount of work needed to make Word (predominately) country
> specific to the English-UK market is more than doing so for
> India? Yet as
> Ian said yesterday he can get a free upgrade from Office 2002
> whereas I
> will get stung for over $420 to *improve* something that is
> only 6 months
> old on my office system.
>
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