werner@utastro.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) (09/28/88)
In article <749@fornax.UUCP>, mcdonald@fornax.UUCP (Ken Mcdonald) writes: [ and I summarize: ] > ... Apple has NOT won the home and university markets .... > ... Apple are giving them a pretty good price break .... *THEM* being university administrations and departments - YES, true; *THEM* meaning students? NO - the university stores are getting machines (to the best of my information) at prices comparable to large dealers; but they are bound somehow to sell them making limited profit. In case of UT, the Microcomputer Center profits still subsidize a Texas Student Union organization which has historically and traditionally been inept or badly run to the extend of losing money in just about everything. (not the fault of the students, you understand; they don't make the important decisions in running the Union) If someone had started not-for-profit compananies, national, regional, or local to sell Macs cheaply to students, prices could have been just as low buying them at normal quantity prices from Apple. my opinion, OPINION, you understand?! And, sure, Apple has not sold all the computers they could sell at a lower price, but I assure you, a lot of BIMmers are very pale and worried these days ... and have been for for quite a while. -- --------------------> PREFERED-RETURN-ADDRESS-FOLLOWS <--------------------- (ARPA) werner@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Internet: 128.83.144.1) (INTERNET) werner%rascal.ics.utexas.edu@cs.utexas.edu (UUCP) ..!utastro!werner or ..!uunet!rascal.ics.utexas.edu!werner
usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) (09/29/88)
In article <3185@utastro.UUCP>, werner@utastro.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) writes: > In article <749@fornax.UUCP>, mcdonald@fornax.UUCP (Ken Mcdonald) writes: > [ and I summarize: ] > > ... Apple has NOT won the home and university markets .... > > ... Apple are giving them a pretty good price break .... > > *THEM* being university administrations and departments - YES, true; > *THEM* meaning students? NO - the university stores are getting machines > (to the best of my information) at prices comparable to large dealers; > but they are bound somehow to sell them making limited profit. To the best of my knowledge, Apple doesn't force schools to sell the computers at a price above what the schools pay for them. Some schools are going to charge quite a bit above the cost, to help them meet administrative costs. Other schools (more often the small ones) will charge the student only what Apple charges them, and just provide this as a service to the students. I got my Mac through the university discount at the University of Wisconsin -- River Falls campus, and the school charged absolutely nothing over Apple's price. To the best of my knowledge (I'm not there any more), that's still what they do with all computer company discounts (IBM, Zenith etc.--I believe they may not have Macs on a regular basis due to problems at the Madison campus). Here (at Michigan State) on the other hand, there is a HUGE price difference between what the school pays and what the student pays (i.e. they can afford to offer $150 off during special sales). So it just depends on the school. > If someone had started not-for-profit compananies, national, regional, or > local to sell Macs cheaply to students, prices could have been just as > low buying them at normal quantity prices from Apple. my opinion, OPINION, > you understand?! I agree that IF someone had done this, it would be cheap. But nobody did (where's the incentive?). Oh well. +----------------------------------+------------------------+ | Anton Rang (grad student) | "VMS forever!" | | Michigan State University | rang@cpswh.cps.msu.edu | +----------------------------------+------------------------+
borton@uva.UUCP (Chris Borton) (09/29/88)
In article <737@cps3xx.UUCP> usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) writes: > To the best of my knowledge, Apple doesn't force schools to sell the >computers at a price above what the schools pay for them. Some >schools are going to charge quite a bit above the cost, to help them >meet administrative costs. Other schools (more often the small ones) >will charge the student only what Apple charges them, and just provide >this as a service to the students. It should also be noted that there are different 'levels' of University Consortium membership, which affect the price of the Macs sold to the university and are determined by various factors including research using Macs, prestige (naw, I didn't say that), ... Example: when UC San Diego was charging $1660 for a Mac Plus, the same deal could be had at CalTech/Stanford/... for a little less than $1400. Thus, it's not only dependent upon the university's selling policy...although that plays a large role. Some universities also have two-tiered pricing for faculty/staff versus students (faculty get a better price at UC Davis). -cbb -- Chris Borton borton%uva@mcvax.{nl,bitnet,uucp} Rotary Scholar, University of Amsterdam CS "Macintosh programmers do it with their manager" -kh