From: Jim Witte (jswitte_at_bloomington.in.us)
Date: Fri Sep 24 2004 - 22:26:33 PDT
> Sounds like the best deal out there would be to sell your dongle on
> eBay for $20-30 and then purchase a ser-001 or a dongle from this
> other person who's name we are not allowed to mention =).
Except for one thing. David I'm sure is not doing this design work
(completely) out of the goodness of his heart. I don't know what the
profit margin per SER-001 or EM-300 is, but I suspect it is not much.
Regardless, it is enough for him to continue to develop and sell his
product.
True, nether the SER-001 nor the EM-300 are particular complicated
pieces of circuitry (I don't think). But they aren't simple to
manufacture either. I could make a SER-001 board by hand with
difficulty (but it wouldn't be as good as the ones David makes, nor
would it last near as long..) I could *not* however produce an EM-300,
and unless you have surface mount technology at your disposal, I would
say it would be impossible. I have no idea what the fixed-cost for
producing a board such as the EM-300 is, in terms of time programming
the surface mount machinery. David does have access to such tech, and
is using it to bring products to what is a very small and spread-out
market, as he has said. If he was not doing it, who would? Apple
certainly won't. I would bet that no other "mainstream" electronics
fabricator is going to do something like that unless there's a market
of at least 50,000 units.
Now, other people who will not be named apparently have this
technology at their disposal, or they outsource.. I could get a board
like the EM-300 produced, but it would cost me more than he sells the
EM-300 for. Tell me then, why didn't *they* come up with the SER-001
or the EM-300 themselves? I don't know what else David may have in
mind for the Newton, but I'm he'll come up with something else.. an
internal bluetooth card perhaps? He is one of the few (the only?)
hardware producer for the Newton community left, aside from Pix
Technologies and the Implant 2000. If you don't support him, he might
(as with most businesses) stop doing R&D in his spare time.. Do you
really want to support someone who rips off other people's designs? Or
more pointedly, do you *not* want to support the person who comes up
with these designs in the first place?
Heed the words of others, "divided we fall"..
Jim
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