bradlee@cg-atla.agfa.com (Rob Bradlee) (05/25/90)
In article <1990May24.170411.17281@phri.nyu.edu> roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes: > I was at a film recorder sales-talk/seminar this morning and saw a >box from AGFA which sits on an AppleTalk net and looks like a LaserWriter > I think it was called a CompuScript. It seems like an idea >I could gather) a 68020, 8 Meg of ram, and a hard disk with all the Adobe >fonts on it. The price is a whopping $18k, which really blew my socks off. > Why does this thing cost so darn much? >driving the cost up? Is it just lack of competition in the marketplace >and/or amortizing the development costs, or does it really cost that much >to produce one of these beasts? >-- Exactly right on all counts. Yes it costs this much because of amortizing development costs over many fewer units then Apple or SUN. I'm sure the latter two companies sell more boxes in a month than we do in a year. (Also, they didn't mention that it's not all standard hardware inside). But of course the competition is the biggest issue. How many PostScript RIPs are there that drive a color film recorder like the Matrix? Even if it was cheap to produce the price might still be high to take advantage of the infamous "market window". If and when the competition comes out with something (AND makes it cheaper) then I'm sure you'd see the price drop. Just my opinion. -- Rob Bradlee w:(508)-658-5600 X5153 h:(617)-944-5595 AGFA Compugraphic Division. ...!{decvax,samsung}!cg-atla!bradlee 200 Ballardvale St. bradlee@cg-atla.agfa.com Wilmington, Mass. 01887 The Nordic Way: Ski till it hurts!