jprice@uclapp.physics.ucla.edu (John Price) (03/07/90)
In article <21385@netnews.upenn.edu>, grobbins@grad1.cis.upenn.edu writes: > Penn New York >CPU student street > >Mac SE 1594 1599 >Mac SE/30 2477 2399 >Mac IIcx 3249 2849 >Mac IIci 3846 3849 > >So much for educational price breaks. Hey, what do you want? You get a $5 break on the SE, and a $3 break on the IIci! :) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Price | Internet: jprice@uclapp.physics.ucla.edu 5-145 Knudsen Hall | BITNET: price@uclaph UCLA Dept. of Physics | DECnet: uclapp::jprice Los Angeles, CA 90024-1547 | YellNet: 213-825-2259 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Where there is no solution, there is no problem.
grobbins@grad1.cis.upenn.edu (03/07/90)
Have you ever drooled over the price breaks students get on Macintosh
computers? Ever wished you attended or worked at a consortium school,
so that you would be eligible for Apple's best bargains?
Well, at least here at Univ. of Penn., that's just a dream. Here
are the current prices on Macintosh CPUs for students/faculty/staff
at the official campus computer store, with some prices taken from
an ad (for Computer Era) in the March 6 New York Times for comparison.
Penn New York
CPU student street
Mac SE 1594 1599
Mac SE/30 2477 2399
Mac IIcx 3249 2849
Mac IIci 3846 3849
All CPUs are 1 Meg, FDHD machines. Penn includes a keyboard
in all prices, and 4-bit video with the IIcx; Computer Era
includes a year of free service.
So much for educational price breaks.
Grobbins grobbins@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
Usual disclaimers apply.dan@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Dan Schwarz) (03/07/90)
>In article <21385@netnews.upenn.edu>, grobbins@grad1.cis.upenn.edu writes: Let me add one extra column to your figures... these are OUR "generous" student discount prices, straight from the Spring 1990 price list. >> Penn New York Brandeis >>CPU student street Student >> >>Mac SE 1594 1599 1621.62 >>Mac SE/30 2477 2399 2591.82 >>Mac IIcx 3249 2849 3127.74 >>Mac IIci 3846 3849 4199.58 >> >>So much for educational price breaks. The interesting part about all this is that the CHARGE-LINE price for Brandeis faculty is 15% lower, across the board, for all prices. When I asked about this, the salesperson said that the discrepancy was due to the absence of sales tax for faculty members. Sure, they get that break, but even in Massachusetts, Sales tax isn't 15%! Where's the extra money going, hm? When I get my new system, I'm going to get it mail-order from New Jersey - no sales tax, no price gouging, and they actually keep an INVENTORY of computers! Imagine that! No 5-week delay between order and receipt! It just doesn't make sense. -- | Same as it ever was | Dan Schwarz, MB 2926 Brandeis U. | RECYCLE YOUR JUNK| | Same as it ever was | I'NET dan@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu | SUPPORT EARTH DAY| | Same as it ever was |----------------------------------| tradetapes?mailme| | Same as it ever was...TALKING HEADS "Once in a Lifetime"| FloydRushDeadEtc.|
gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (03/07/90)
[...] >>> Penn New York Brandeis >>>CPU student street Student >>> >>>Mac SE 1594 1599 1621.62 >>>Mac SE/30 2477 2399 2591.82 >>>Mac IIcx 3249 2849 3127.74 >>>Mac IIci 3846 3849 4199.58 >>> [...] On a related note: One of the new Apple tenets seems to be a better dealer network, cutting out the dealers who "just move boxes". All in all, this seems a good idea: better service, dealers who offer their customers good service, etc. I just hope Apple doesn't cut out _all_ the "box movers", if they're the ones who are offering prices like those above. Maybe some NY firms are giving cutrate prices and great service, but if I had to have one or the other...suffice it to say, I couldn't afford to pay list, but the prices above are more reasonable (BTW, I don't get edu discount). BTW, anybody know how these people sell for so little? Are they just cutting their own margin? Robert ============================================================================ = gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu * generic disclaimer: * "It's more fun to = = * all my opinions are * compute" = = * mine * -Kraftwerk = ============================================================================
gwangung@milton.acs.washington.edu (Roger Tang) (03/07/90)
In article <7887@tank.uchicago.edu> gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: >>>> Penn New York Brandeis >>>>CPU student street Student >>>> >>>>Mac SE 1594 1599 1621.62 >>>>Mac SE/30 2477 2399 2591.82 >>>>Mac IIcx 3249 2849 3127.74 >>>>Mac IIci 3846 3849 4199.58 Oh well, I can do this too..... Univerisity of Washington price Mac SE 1551 Mac SE/30 2478 Mac IIcx 2927+345 (for 4-bit card) Mac IIci 3915 Note that this price does NOT include a keyboard, but DOES include the local sales tax, which I'm sure the New York "price" does not (makes a BIG difference in comparing...). Speaking of which..... >BTW, anybody know how these people sell for so little? Are they just cutting >their own margin? Who the HECK are these people?? I looked over my NY Times for 3/6 and I didn't see ANY ad that came CLOSE to these quoted prices.......
FTWILSON@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Frederick Todd Wilson) (03/07/90)
In article <7887@tank.uchicago.edu>, gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: >[...] >>>> Penn New York Brandeis >>>>CPU student street Student > [price stuff deleted] > >BTW, anybody know how these people sell for so little? Are they just cutting >their own margin? > >Robert > >============================================================================ Without knowing exactly what ad, from what dealer, in what paper, etc. in which these prices showed up, it's impossible to say for sure. But, in theory, it should be very difficult for dealers to undercut a campus price. Nobody outside Apple gets better prices than ed. institutions. Prices as listed from the schools above are usually the result of campus resale that has a lot of overhead (space, inventory, salaries, etc.). This is one way by which campus prices could be higher than street. Another possibility is that there may be some fine print to the deal in the paper, and that fine print may not even be in the ad. For example, many dealers purchase bare-bones systems from Apple, and then OEM non-Apple HDs. (Sure, they'll be Quantums, but not the ones Apple installed.) For this reason its actually very important to ask a dealer who manufactures the drive mechanism and if it was Apple installed (that is, if you care). One last thing is that dealers sometimes put conditions of sale in fine print (like: Get price XXXX on a Mac SE/30 [when you buy this peripheral with it]). Sometimes these are Apple generated, sometimes not. So, there are some ideas on that. Hope it answers some questions. Todd Wilson Disclaimer: All opinions are my own, etc.
chandy@dg.dg.com (John Chandy) (03/08/90)
In article <1990Mar7.014140.17439@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu> dan@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Dan Schwarz) writes: >>In article <21385@netnews.upenn.edu>, grobbins@grad1.cis.upenn.edu writes: > >Let me add one extra column to your figures... these are OUR "generous" >student discount prices, straight from the Spring 1990 price list. > >>> Penn New York Brandeis >>>CPU student street Student >>> >>>Mac SE 1594 1599 1621.62 >>>Mac SE/30 2477 2399 2591.82 >>>Mac IIcx 3249 2849 3127.74 >>>Mac IIci 3846 3849 4199.58 >>> >>>So much for educational price breaks. > When I used to work at the computer center at MIT (until June 89), our discount from Apple used to be about 46% off list. I think Apple's maximum dealer discount is 40% but I'm not sure about that. We used to mark up our prices roughly 10-15% because we were forced to be self sufficient, i.e. no subsidies from MIT. A lot of the state university computer stores get substantial subsidies from the university itself, and thus they are able to charge prices without the markup. I don't know how MIT's prices compare with those above, but I can bet Penn is marking up their products a lot more than they have to. In defense of them, Penn may have been stuck with a whole lot of machines bought before the recent price drop and Apple may not be offering price protection. Apple did that to MIT when they dropped the MacII, and we were forced to eat the price difference. As for Brandeis, I don't think they are a consortium school and thus don't get the same level of discounts. John Chandy ------------------------------------------------------------------- chandy@emav13.webo.dg.com John_Chandy%dgc.ceo.dg.com@relay.cs.net
roy@phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) (03/08/90)
In <7887@tank.uchicago.edu> gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: > One of the new Apple tenets seems to be a better dealer network, cutting > out the dealers who "just move boxes". [...] BTW, anybody know how these > people sell for so little? Are they just cutting their own margin? The prices under discussion are from Computer Era, who are indeed a "box mover". Their service department, in my opinion, is pretty poor. They have a neato phone mail system with multiple levels of menus, which eventually lets you leave a message, but it can be days of persistant calling until you get to talk to anybody. One way CE has the lowest prices in town is that they only take certified checks or cash (and you have to put down a 25% deposit when you order your machine, the rest when you pick it up a few days later). They will, if you convince them you are a big customer willing to do a lot of repeat business, allow you to use plain (i.e. non-certified) corporate checks, but they don't take credit cards, or purchase orders, or personal checks (unless certified). A saleman there told me that CE is privately owned by two guys who give a whole new definition to the term "fiscal conservitism". They have a grand total of one customer from whom they accept POs. A small company called Citibank. We do a lot of business with ComputerLand (which does take our POs). I once got them to match CE's prices on a $15k order by twisting our salesman's arm a lot, and offering a check with the order instead of issuing a PO and paying against an invoice 30 days later. Since then, CE has dropped their prices another few $100 (the latest prices represent a $150 drop for the c[xi] compared to the past couple of months, plus the 1-year service sweetner, which is nothing to sneeze at). CL now says that they can no longer match CE's prices, since they would loose money on it. Who knows? CE certainly moves a lot more Macs than CL, so maybe they get a better deal on wholesale from Apple. CE sells only Macs, I think. CL (and most of the other NY stores) sell everything. Our local CL branch now has their Mac stuff on display closer to the front window than their PC stuff, so maybe that's an indication of how things are going? Again, who knows? CL sells peripherals for less than CE does, so the total system price remains about the same. On the other hand, CE is perfectly happy to sell you a bare CPU and let you integrate your own stuff from the ads in the back of MacWeek. CL tries to talk you out of this, but I've got my salesman well trained in this respect. I tell him honestly what the best price I've seen on disks, memory, or monitors is and give him a chance to match it. If he can't, we shake hands and he sells me the bare CPU. I tend to go with CL, as long as he can get close to CE's price, because I know we have a long-term relationship with the same salesman. They occasionally throw us favors when they can (I've had a couple of repairs done freebee). Now, if you're thinking of opening a business, and need a lesson in the long-term advantages of good customer relations, pay close attention to this story. 4 or 5 years ago, somebody here had a PC with a bad memory chip. I didn't know anything about fixing PCs, so I brought it over to the then-brand-new CL a few blocks from here. They fixed it in one day, and when I went to pick it up, the manager said it was a $3 part (i.e. one memory chip) and 10 minutes worth of labor. If he wrote up a bill, it would be a minimum charge of at least $100, but that didn't seem right to him, so he just did it for free. A good first impression, that has lasted for years. I doubt a box-mover like CE would have done that for me. -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu -OR- {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy "My karma ran over my dogma"
cmm1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (Christopher M Mauritz) (03/08/90)
In article <10660@pucc.Princeton.EDU> FTWILSON@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes: >In article <7887@tank.uchicago.edu>, gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: > >>[...] >>>>> Penn New York Brandeis >>>>>CPU student street Student >> [price stuff deleted] >> >>BTW, anybody know how these people sell for so little? Are they just cutting >>their own margin? >> >>Robert >> >>============================================================================ >Without knowing exactly what ad, from what dealer, in what paper, etc. in >which these prices showed up, it's impossible to say for sure. But, in theory, >it should be very difficult for dealers to undercut a campus price. Nobody >outside Apple gets better prices than ed. institutions. > >Prices as listed from the schools above are usually the result of campus >resale that has a lot of overhead (space, inventory, salaries, etc.). This >is one way by which campus prices could be higher than street. > Or they could be just gouging the students by adding a bit of an "extra" margin of profit in the prices. You should see the prices of computer systems with "educational discounts" at the Columbia University bookstore (actually, all of their pricing is a bit on the obscene side so I don't know if they are treating computers any differently.). Chris ------------------------------+--------------------------- Chris Mauritz |Where there's a BEER, cmm1@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu |there's a plan. (c)All rights reserved. | Send flames to /dev/null |Need I say more? ------------------------------+---------------------------
ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) (03/10/90)
< Without knowing exactly what ad, from what dealer, in what paper, etc. in < which these prices showed up, it's impossible to say for sure. But, in theory , < it should be very difficult for dealers to undercut a campus price. Nobody < outside Apple gets better prices than ed. institutions. How about developers? We get some pretty good discounts. And some amazing service, even. We needed an SE/30 *RIGHT* *AWAY*. We ordered from Apple on Tuesday, and called them on Wednesday to ask how long it would take. They said three weeks. We explained how much we needed that machine. It arrived Friday. Tim Smith
Adam.Frix@p2.f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Adam Frix) (03/11/90)
In a message of 03/09/90, FROM: grobbins wrote - > Have you ever drooled over the price breaks students get on Macintosh > computers? Ever wished you attended or worked at a consortium school, > so that you would be eligible for Apple's best bargains? > > Well, at least here at Univ. of Penn., that's just a dream. Here are > the current prices on Macintosh CPUs for students/faculty/staff at the > official campus computer store, with some prices taken from an ad (for > Computer Era) in the March 6 New York Times for comparison. > > (stuff describing identical campus/retail store prices deleted) > > So much for educational price breaks. Wait, wasn't UPenn where all the hoo-ha started with retail stores bitching about Apple's University Consortium? Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of lawsuit over the Consortium pricing policies, and how they were taking the bread out of the mouths of poor CHILDREN (the sacred word) of retail dealers? If so, then the prices you quoted don't surprise me. But here at Ohio State, the deals remain, despite a very big Apple dealer (a Huge Apple Dealer) not a mile away. --Adam-- -- Adam Frix via cmhGate - Net 226 fido<=>uucp gateway Col, OH UUCP: ...!osu-cis!n8emr!cmhgate!200.2!Adam.Frix INET: Adam.Frix@p2.f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG