-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Morris [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 23 January 2001 11:58
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Software/Graphics/Teaching
I have no idea what it actually costs to produce Excel: Microsoft's admin
costs alone must be pretty huge.
Depends what you mean by "admin." - I wouldn't accept that the wages of the
people who sue you if Gates is unhappy are genuine costs of (re-)production,
for instance.
More debatable is how to classify the undoubtedly enormous expenditures on
development of new "features" - many of these seem to be designed to look
superficially like reasons to upgrade at further expense.
If they spent a higher proportion on fixing the "features" already included,
I might be more sympathetic.
But compare commercial shareware - I have paid for several products (e.g.
GraphicConverter, FileBuddy - non-Mac users will have to remain in the dark
here) for which I get free (and frequent) upgrades, having paid <GBP50.
They claim to (and do) do much less than MS BloatWare, but on the other hand
they do exactly what they claim to without hidden gotchas.
Julian
But I suspect it is really a question
there of what the market will bear. After all, they do seem to make a
profit ...
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