Patrick: Amazing. I read so much crap on the internet. But every once in a while you read a post from someone who actually knows what he's talking about. Congratulations.
"I have a floppy drive, why do I need backwards compatibility?"
Clear, succinct, and to the point. If this were a little shorter we could make it our motto.
"If the floppy was useful I would not have bought a Zip drive."
I like this one too. :-)
"The most important consideration of OEMs for new peripherals has been
price and consumer acceptance." And this one is the knock-out punch.
When an OEM puts together a model they think "How can I make a profit on this. What's my competitor doing. What do my customers WANT."
To cover all the bases, the OEM supports a range of models. The poor OEMs just have a line from low-end to high-end. The better OEMs design their high-end machines for a specific use, like DTP (Desktop Publishing), or graphics design, or CAD-CAM, etc.
At the low end, the idea is to put together the cheapest thing I can break even on. Then you make a profit by selling add-ons and upgrades. The external Zip is perfect for this.
How do you make a high end machine? What you SHOULD do is look at what leading edge customers in DTP or CAD-CAM are using. Then you offer those things built-in. The internal Zip is perfect for this BECAUSE THE EXTERNAL ZIP IS SUCCESSFUL.
What Compaq is doing is dead wrong. Their thought is to build a high end machine by just adding high priced peripherals. That is why they have that system with the PD-CD-ROM. Not because anyone asked for it, but because it made the unit high-priced. Stupid.
They are supporting the LS-120 for the same reason. They want to differentiate high-end Compaq computers from Dell, Gateway, etc. The thought was just to add functionality (and, of necessity, expense) even though the customer has not asked for it. Duhh.
As you said, if you want to be included in OEM machines you have to win consumer acceptance FIRST. |
