I'm at a loss. Last Monday Apple announced a price cut for a
popular web software package.
That in itself is not unusual. Software companies routinely drop
prices on software.
Nor is it surprising that Apple dropped the price to extend its
presence in the web server market.
What is pretty surprising is that the price drop is $49,000, give
or take a few hundred dollars. If the original package had retailed
for $150,000, I might not raise an eyebrow. But considering the fact
that the software retailed for $50,000, a $49,000 price drop is
pretty substantial.
Of course were talking about WebObjects here, and this kind of
price drop begs a few questions.
Who set the original price?
Someone seems to have made a major goof here. Maybe there's a
decimal out of place or something? Maybe a dart board in the
marketing room? What could possibly lead Apple to justify a $50,000
price to begin with? Granted, the price may have been fair, but a
price drop of $49,000 makes me wonder if it was worth $50,000 in the
first place.
Who set the new price?
Looking at the new price and the old price, I can't really
understand how they settled on $699. Why not $30,000? Or $15,000? Or
even $5,000. If people bought it at $50,000, they'll really go for it
at $5,000. The pricing model seems to be fairly arbitrary.
What about recent customers?
I'm sure that there's some poor guy or gal out there who bought
WebObjects two weeks ago at the full price of $50,000. Will Apple
give these poor souls a break, like maybe deliver a brand new Mustang
to their door? They'd still be $25,000 ahead of the game if they did
that, right? And what great PR!
Is Apple now losing money on WebObjects?
Let's be serious for a moment. If $50,000 was a fair price for
WebObjects, Apple is taking a very serious loss here. How can it
justify this loss? They may want to gain market share but does a loss
of this magnitude justify the goal they are trying to achieve?
If they are not taking a huge loss on this software package then
it's clear that the software was not fairly priced to begin with. Is
it appropriate for Apple to set such a price on a software product?
Is it fair for Apple to take early adopters for a ride and then
implement a huge price drop?
Stephen Van
Esch is the founder and president of
the
E-learning Foundry, an online training
resource for Mac users. Steve loves the Mac and is doubly bilingual,
since he's also fluent in Windows and French.
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