bates@cfig1.DEC (Ken Bates DTN 522-2039) (04/01/86)
*** FLAME ON Having been a Hyperdrive 20 owner for the past several months, I never thought I would see the day when I would regret my purchase. Sad to say, that day has come. I received a letter in the mail from GCC the other day informing me that if I wished to upgrade my 512K Mac to include the new 800K drive, it would cost me $89 to keep my Hyperdrive working. If I wished the Mac+ logic board, it would cost me $299 to keep the Hyperdrive working. I thought that this must have been a misprint, so I called GCC. No mistake, they want a cool $299 if you have your Mac upgraded to a Mac+. This after paying $2,200 for the drive in the first place (and in addition to whatever the going price is for a Mac+ conversion!). I hate to think what will happen when the next release of the Finder comes out. Will GCC want another few hundred so I can boot it? Almost makes me afraid to use their backup utility. Will the restore program demand money before I can recover files? The mathematics of the price become even more ridiculous when previous prices are taken into account. If I recall, the original Hyperdrive 20 cost around $2500. If I had purchased one at that price, then the upgrade price of $300 would bring the total to $2800. On the other hand, I can go out and buy a brand new Hyperdrive 20 which works with the Mac+ for $1700 (according to a GCC spokesman I talked to). How can this be? I realize that profit is the American way, but this seems a little ridiculous! Their response to this query was that (quote) they were doing a favor to their customers by even selling an upgrade; other manufacturers were forcing existing owners to buy a new drive (unquote). So much for customer service and support. I can understand a company charging excessive prices when they're the only kid on the block, but I fail to see how that company expects to remain viable when they have competitors and continue to gouge their customers. I talked to the local Apple dealer, and he is in complete agreement with my position, and is no longer recommending Hyperdrive purchases to his customers. (He cited reliability problems as the reason, but agreed with my assessment of their business practices.) In summary, I would advise anyone considering a hard disk to avoid GCC and the Hyperdrive like the plague, since the policy of GCC seems to be to soak the customer for whatever they can (or is it simply take the money and run?). It appears that your current purchase price will only be the beginning. As new upgrades to the Mac come out, GCC will in all probability be back in your pocket demanding more money if you want to stay compatible. You can always tell the pioneers by the arrows in their backs. *** FLAME OFF Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own and in no way represent the opinion of my employer. On the other hand, my employer owns numerous Macs and is contemplating the acquisition of more, and my recommendation will be to avoid GCC and utilize a vendor which provides customer support instead of customer pillage. -- Ken Bates uucp : decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-bison!bates arpa : bates%bison.dec@decwrl cis : 70047,1226 delphi: KBATES enet : BISON::BATES phone : (303) 594-2039 mail : Digital Equipment Corp. 301 Rockrimmon Blvd. Colorado Springs, CO 80919
thomas@utah-gr.UUCP (Spencer W. Thomas) (04/02/86)
This is very similar to all the flames when the 512 Mac came out. It's
amazing the number of people who want a manufacturer to do something
(that costs the manufacturer money) for free. Obviously, GCC has to do
something to effect the upgrade. This something costs them time and
materials, and they are perfectly within their rights to charge for it.
It is also true (unfortunately or fortunately, depending) in our
business that prices tend to come down after the introduction of a new
product, and after some of the start-up costs have been amortized.
Obviously, you thought that the price you payed for your Hyperdrive was
worth it at the time, or you wouldn't have gotten it. Ask yourself
honestly, if the difference between what you payed, and what you could
get one for now, is worth the use you have gotten out of it so far.
Would you really have done without the drive for so long, just so you
could buy a cheaper one?
You should be glad that computer manufacturers usually provide an
"upgrade" path. If you buy an automobile, and next year a much improved
version comes out (with lower gas mileage, more power, more comfortable
seats, snazzier paint job, and so on), you can't "upgrade" your current
car at all -- you are stuck with it, unless you want to buy a complete
new one.
--
=Spencer ({ihnp4,decvax}!utah-cs!thomas, thomas@utah-cs.ARPA)tim@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith) (04/03/86)
In an article bates@cfig1.DEC (Ken Bates) writes: > > I thought that this must have been a misprint, so I called GCC. > No mistake, they want a cool $299 if you have your Mac upgraded > to a Mac+. This after paying $2,200 for the drive in the first > place (and in addition to whatever the going price is for a Mac+ > conversion!). I hate to think what will happen when the next > release of the Finder comes out. Will GCC want another few > hundred so I can boot it? Almost makes me afraid to use their > backup utility. Will the restore program demand money before I > can recover files? When a new release of the Finder comes out, it will probably not require hardware changes to run! The upgrade to Mac+ compatability for the Hyperdrive involves replacement of the controller. $300 is a reasonable price for a controller. However, $89 seems unreasonable for the ROM only upgrade, but I don't know anything about ROM prices. Perhaps someone from GCC ( which is on the net ) would be so kind as to explain? > If I recall, the original Hyperdrive 20 cost around $2500. If I > had purchased one at that price, then the upgrade price of $300 > would bring the total to $2800. On the other hand, I can go out > and buy a brand new Hyperdrive 20 which works with the Mac+ for > $1700 (according to a GCC spokesman I talked to). How can this > be? My Mac started out as a 128k. It is now a 512k. Total cost of my Mac ( purchase price + memory upgrade ) was $2100. I could now buy this for $1300. A Mac+ upgrade would cost $900 ( $300 for disk/rom, $600 for logic board ). The total would be $3000. I can buy a Mac+ for $2100. How can this be? Prices fall. You should have *known* that when you bought your Hyperdrive ( and when you bought your Mac ). Think of the price difference as what you pay to use the product while others are waiting for the price to fall. As for the upgrade cost, try looking at it this way: You have 1 512k Mac and a Hyperdrive, and you desire a Mac+ and a Hyperdrive+. There are two ways to do this. You can pay the upgrade fees, which come to ~$1300. The other thing you could do is sell your Mac and Hyperdrive, and apply the money towards a Mac+ and a Hyperdrive. A *new* 512 Mac goes for about $1400, so if you get real lucky, you may get $1200. A new Hyperdrive goes for around $1700, so $1500 would be a very good price to sell a used one for. This gives you $2700. Now a Mac+ is going for around $2100 and you said that a Mac+ compatable new Hyperdrive is $1700. That brings us to $3800. We will forget about buying MacWrite and MacPaint for the Mac+. We are $1100 short. The difference between the two approaches is $200. And this was assuming some pretty good prices for your used equipment. I would interpret this as saying that the upgrade cost is not unreasonable. [ I am not sure that the above actually means anything. Is this a valid way of telling if an upgrade cost is "reasonable"? ] Another way to look at it is to look at the parts you need. To have a Hyperdrive+, you need the disk, the controller, the roms, the power supply and the fan. GCC sells these together for about $1700. Prices for the consumer are about 4 times what it costs the company, so maybe $1000 of the $1700 is the disk itself, and the fan and power supply are probably about $300 when it gets to the consumer. Thus, the consumer cost of the controller and the roms are about $400. Since you already have the disk, fan, and power supply, and upgrade cost of around $400 should be reasonable. > As new upgrades to the Mac come out, GCC will in all probability > be back in your pocket demanding more money if you want to stay > compatible. So will Apple. What do you think a fair price would be? -- Tim Smith sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim || ima!ism780!tim || ihnp4!cithep!tim
ngg@bridge2.UUCP (Norman Goodger) (04/04/86)
> > > *** FLAME ON > > Having been a Hyperdrive 20 owner for the past several months, I never thought > I would see the day when I would regret my purchase. Sad to say, that day has > come. I received a letter in the mail from GCC the other day informing me that > if I wished to upgrade my 512K Mac to include the new 800K drive, it would > cost me $89 to keep my Hyperdrive working. If I wished the Mac+ logic board, > it would cost me $299 to keep the Hyperdrive working. > > *** FLAME OFF I agree with this entirely. GCC is trying to soak their users to the hilt. its bad enough when they overprice their products, because they think that they can get away with it, its another when they are taking advantage of the user. ITs a real shame that they can't see the customer base that they are throwing away, because of there greed and blindness to the market. with the advent of the SCSI drives that are just as fast if not faster than the Hyper at prices that are far lower it only a matter of time before Hypers market dries up. Hyper's excuse is they have better software, its only a matter of time before that problem is solved too. Norm Goodger Bridge Comm. !bridge2!ngg
kff@kesmai.UUCP (Kelton Flinn) (04/08/86)
> *** FLAME ON > > Having been a Hyperdrive 20 owner for the past several months, I never thought > I would see the day when I would regret my purchase. Sad to say, that day has > come. ... > > The mathematics of the price become even more ridiculous when previous prices > are taken into account. If I recall, the original Hyperdrive 20 cost around > $2500. If I had purchased one at that price, then the upgrade price of $300 > would bring the total to $2800. On the other hand, I can go out and buy a brand > new Hyperdrive 20 which works with the Mac+ for $1700 (according to a GCC > spokesman I talked to). How can this be? I realize that profit is the American If you think *thats* bad, try the mathematics of buying a Macintosh XL for $3999, then trading it for a Mac+ for $1499, not counting the $600 512K memory board which doesn't have any trade-in value at all. Not that we have that much choice, the XL is too slow and has no sound generation. The question for the day is "How much did you pay for your Mac+??" (No flames about the stupidity of buying an XL in the first place, please). Seriously, anyone want a 512K memory board for a Lisa? Inquiries by mail or telephone to: Kelton Flinn Kesmai Corporation ..!decvax!mcnc!ncsu!uvacs!kesmai!kff (804) 973-1040 ---------------- Claimer: The above opinions represent those of my employer, since I'm the boss.
76645668@sdcc13.UUCP ({|lit}) (04/08/86)
In article <1712@utah-gr.UUCP>, thomas@utah-gr.UUCP (Spencer W. Thomas) writes: > > This is very similar to all the flames when the 512 Mac came out. It's > amazing the number of people who want a manufacturer to do something > (that costs the manufacturer money) for free. Obviously, GCC has to do > something to effect the upgrade. This something costs them time and > materials, and they are perfectly within their rights to charge for it. There is a difference between charging and honest price to pay for, and make a profit on, a legitimate upgrade, and price gouging. GCC is charging all it can get from people who have almost no choice now but to pay up, if they want to remain in the forefront of the Mac field. Other companies, for instance Levco (no affiliation except as a customer) charge $25 to be compatible with the Apple Mac+ upgrade. This covers a new EPROM, which must cost them a whole $3, the time it takes them to program it (worth another $2), and a nice (500%) profit. Many people, me included, we understandably upset when Apple announced it was charging $1000 for a 512K upgrade involving $300 (at that time) worth of chips. Thats why I bought mine from Levco for $200 (9 months later). [By the way, Levco charges $25 to make their 2Meg upgrade Mac+ compatible, not their 512K upgrade.] Certainly a company is well within their "right" to charge whatever they can get for a product. And we are well with our rights to not patronize a company that has shown a willingness to take advantage of our wallet at the first opportunity. If you have money to burn, buy a Hyperdrive. They sure are fast drives, I wouldn't mind owning one. But I want value in a product too, and in a field where I expect to have to upgrade every year, value includes not only the original purchase price, but the upgrade policy too. David Shayer, Univ. of Cal. at San Diego
dlt@csun.UUCP (04/16/86)
> In article <1712@utah-gr.UUCP>, thomas@utah-gr.UUCP (Spencer W. Thomas) writes: > > > > This is very similar to all the flames when the 512 Mac came out. It's > > amazing the number of people who want a manufacturer to do something > > (that costs the manufacturer money) for free. Obviously, GCC has to do > > something to effect the upgrade. This something costs them time and > > materials, and they are perfectly within their rights to charge for it. > > There is a difference between charging and honest price to pay for, > and make a profit on, a legitimate upgrade, and price gouging. GCC > is charging all it can get from people who have almost no choice now > but to pay up, if they want to remain in the forefront of the Mac > field. I've decided to buy a Mac+/HD20. I'm tired of being tied down by GCC and waiting for upgrade paths. I find it interesting that the Mac+/HD20 combination is generally faster than the 10M HyperMac in loading programs, etc. This may be a misperception as I only received the machine yesterday. > > Other companies, for instance Levco (no affiliation except as a > customer) charge $25 to be compatible with the Apple Mac+ upgrade. > This covers a new EPROM, which must cost them a whole $3, the time > it takes them to program it (worth another $2), and a nice (500%) > profit. > > Many people, me included, we understandably upset when Apple > announced it was charging $1000 for a 512K upgrade involving $300 > (at that time) worth of chips. Thats why I bought mine from Levco > for $200 (9 months later). [By the way, Levco charges $25 to make > their 2Meg upgrade Mac+ compatible, not their 512K upgrade.] > > Certainly a company is well within their "right" to charge whatever > they can get for a product. And we are well with our rights to not > patronize a company that has shown a willingness to take advantage > of our wallet at the first opportunity. If you have money to burn, > buy a Hyperdrive. They sure are fast drives, I wouldn't mind owning > one. But I want value in a product too, and in a field where I > expect to have to upgrade every year, value includes not only the > original purchase price, but the upgrade policy too. > > David Shayer, Univ. of Cal. at San Diego *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***