Mathematica pricing gouging on Sun [long]

[Alan Stebbens]

> ... While it is true that the Mac price is much
> lower than the Sun (or other workstation versions), the perfomance on a
> Mac does not even come close to that on a Sun.  Most of the calculations I
> and my collegues do will not run on even an 8 megabyte Mac II - the
> programs bomb as the machine runs out of memory.  Further, every benchmark
> I have runs from 4 to 20 times slower on a Mac relative to a similarly
> priced SPARCstation 1.  So for similarly priced hardware, you get many
> times the performance on a Sun over a Mac.  So I suggest that you divide
> your price numbers (hardware plus Mathematica software) by the improved
> performance for the higher priced > version of Mathematica.  In my case,
> since my programs will not run on a Mac II, the benefit I get from a lower
> priced package is zero.

However much this is true, Mathematica had very little to do with the
performance of the Sun relative to the Mac -- ostensibly you are already
paying Sun for the performance increase.  It makes no sense to me to pay a
software vendor more money for a product just because it runs on faster
hardware.

Of course, one must understand the economic principles involved here: a
*marketing* decision was made to match the price of the product with the
perceived available amount of money (i.e., demand).  There are usually two
meaningful responses to an inaccurate perception of the market's demand: 

   1. Alternative vendors provide similar software in the
      lower-price niche, which is not very likely considering the
      incredible depth of Mathematica.

   2. Resist purchasing the product, which is most likely to get
      the attention of Wolfram's "marketeers" (quite similar in
      character to "racketeers" :^).

Resistance to purchasing falls into four categories: 

  (a) Don't buy at all; unlikely if you *need* the product.

  (b) Buy a single copy, break any copy-protection, & cheat on the
      license; This, certainly, is not condoned by us, but it is a
      fact that some people do this.  Unfortunately, this form of
      "resistance" is ultimately futile since it really justifies
      the original high price.

  (c) Buy the product for the hardware on which its purchase is
      cheapest.  This is only possible if you have, or can obtain,
      the alternative platform, and don't mind the loss of
      performance. 

  (d) Buy the product, but be a very "fussy" customer, complain
      loudly about the price, and generate lots of bad press.
      This is the only form of resistance which satisfies both the
      consumer's need for the product, and his/her need to express
      outrage and frustration with the pricing.

Unfortunately, with a product like Mathematica, you almost have a captive
consumer market.  The low price on the Mac version is there solely to bait
the demand for the higher performance platform version.  The only way the
price will be lowered is if the marketeers can be convinced that enough
people are resisting in form (a).  This is possible even if you buy the
product: just tell Wolfram, Inc. that you are reluctantly buying it
because you need it, but you are recommending against it for your
associates solely because of the price gouging.

Although Wolfram, Inc. is not all that different from most vendors, as
Steve pointed out, I don't believe that reduces their moral culpability
for opportunistic price gouging.  Just because everyone does it, does not
make it right.

Alan Stebbens <aks at hub.ucsb.edu>