In spite of reading all of the above posts and the reasoning with them, I just can not understand the dissatisfaction with Outlaw in regards to their lowering of the price of the 950. Maybe I am not the kind of person who will resent someone else's good fortune.

Those who begrudge Outlaw for the delay and teething pains in regards to the 950 BEFORE the price reduction are at least consistent when they continue to have negative feelings after the price reduction. Those who were not dissatisfied prior to the price reduction and who now are dissatifsied after the price reduction because of the price reduction (regardless of past issues rekindled) have no sympathy from me.

As is the case with technology items, the price of existing technology decreases, or, for the same amount of money, you get more.

I bought a computer box back in 1989 for about $1.2k. Just the case, cpu, memory, power supply and hard drive. It had an Intel 486 50MHz (not a dx2, it had a 50MHz memory bus), the fastest available at the time. The cpu alone cost $700. The little shop I bought it from in Palo Alto, CA was really lacking in technical skill. After the delivery date came and went, I went in and showed them how to configure it properly.

A few weeks later, the 66MHz 486 came out, and came out for less money than the 50MHz version. I did NOT expect an accomodation on my recent purchase in spite of the poor service this company gave. I understand that when I took delivery of my purchase for the agreed upon price, that was that. I still had my 50MHz 486 based system and it still worked fine for many years.

When Outlaw first announced the 950, the may have had a general idea of what the selling price may be, even though the 950 itself may not have been finalized. They do not know what they will need to charge a year or more down the road. Many compontents that are technology driven, such as DSPs, logic, CPUs, and such are initially priced based on recouping the R&D costs, not the cost of manufacure.

Other components, whose R&D costs have been recovered long ago, such as resistors and capacitors, transformers, diodes and such are priced based more on the cost of manufacture (or what the market will bear).

In the case for all components, the price will be affected by what the competition is offering and charging for it.

In the case of the 950, once the cost of R&D, of the tooling and setup charges for manufacture, have all been recouped and if the costs of the components, licenceing fees, actual manufacturing costs will allow, the price to the customer might be lowered.

I am glad that Outlaw has lowered the price of the 950. I hope that their cost for the 950 has went down by a similar or more amount because companies need to make money to stay in business to bring us new and ever more wonederful products.

Paul

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the 1derful1

[This message has been edited by Paul J. Stiles (edited June 15, 2003).]