Re: Scaling noise

["Martin J. Bligh" <mbligh@aracnet.com>]

> You don't make that much money, if any, on the high end, the R&D costs
> dominate. 

Neither of us have figures to hand, I think. But you seem prepared to
admit there's some money to be made at least. Therefore it seems like
a good market for someone to be in.

> But you make money because people buy the middle of the road
> because you have the high end.  If you don't, they feel uneasy that they
> can't grow with you.  The high end enables the sales of the real money
> makers.  It's pure marketing, the high end could be imaginary and as
> long as you convinced the customers you had it you'd be more profitable.

OK. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that I buy that (I don't really,
but agree it might be a factor). What makes you think the argument is
different for an OS than it is for hardware? For adoption of Linux as
a OS to dominate the market, it's important for the high end to be there 
as well ... pervasive Linux.

Seeing Linux and Open Source in general succeed is important to me 
personaly as a deep seated belief. Maybe from your own arguments, you can
see it's important for the high end to be there, even if you see no other
practical purpose for the machines. I believe there are real uses besides
marketing for it to be there, but maybe you don't need to believe that
to be convinced.

M.

PS. Of course, that still leaves the question of programming approach,
but that's a whole other discussion ;-)