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To: The Duke of URL© who wrote (165187)	5/16/2002 11:12:02 AM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

RE:"What is at issue is that MS sold the same program for an allocated $50, that Borland wanted to charge $495 for, and yes I know they [belatedly] lowered the price." I remember it the other way around. Quatro Pro Windows ended up selling for $50 and Excel for a few hundred. This lasted for about a year as Borland went under. I recall MS pulled some tricks on Borland...something to to do incompatibility between formats. Nothing new for MS. QPW finally ended up at Corel...still there but obscure. Jim

To: The Duke of URL© who wrote (165187)	5/17/2002 4:29:43 PM
From: Saturn V	Respond to of 186894

Ref <What is at issue is that MS sold the same program for an allocated $50, that Borland wanted to charge $495 for > I would say that Borland made a colossal blunder by not matching Microsoft's price, and I have no sympathy for them. The incremental cost for a piece of software is less than $10. Anything above that goes towards margin. For a low volume software part, the margin has to be very large to cover overhead and development costs. But for a mass market product the margin can be lower, since the potential volumes are huge. A low sales price can increase profits if it stimultes a huge demand. So Microsoft has been a consummate marketer by pricing its application software low enough to stimulate the mass demand. It amazes me that Borland made this blunder, since Borland made a major name for itself by low priced compilers like Turbo C, Turbo Pascal etc. Prior to Borlands Turbo series, Microsoft sold programming tools for $300 and dominated the market. Borland began to sell compilers for under $100, and made a big impact on the student market, and thereby tapped into a new market for programming tools. Microsoft responded by SEGMENTATION- a Student Edition for under $100 to stop the inroads of Borland, and a higher priced Professional Edition ! Borland failed to use similar tactics for its Office suite !