Database giant Oracle Corporation announced this week that it is backing off its multicore licensing scheme, and move more towards the industry mainstream. Mulitcore chips essentially pack more than one processor on a chip, causing havoc for pricing models that … Read More
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Pricing with Imperfect Information
Pricing theory is extremely compelling if we know what’s going on. The problem with applying the theory is that our information is so far from perfect, it may not even be relevant, accurate, timely, or available. Most often, we attempt … Read More
PriceGrabber Bought for $485M
Retail and financial services firm GUS bought price comparison site operator PriceGrabber for $485M. PriceGrabber allows consumers to compare prices on a wide variety of items. The site makes money through referrals, so in some ways it’s more of an … Read More
Pricing Humor– Rare but Good
For some reason, the pricing field doesn’t have a great reputation for humor. (See this earlier post for one example.) There’s nothing like humor for getting a point across, though. So check out this piece about a funny way to … Read More
Are the Record Companies Right?
Record executives have been pushing to move the iTunes digital music service, which sells songs for $0.99, to a demand-based pricing model, where hit singles would cost more, and rarely bought tunes would cost less (or perhaps they just want … Read More
Teen Swaps Barcodes to Buy iPod for $4.99
According to this story in the Denver Post, a 19-year-old college freshman used barcode printing software to print barcodes for cheap products which he then swapped with the barcodes on expensive products. He was caught because he returned to the … Read More
Price Fixing Roundup
On the heels of yesterday’s post on price fixing in the luxury Paris hotel market, here are a number of other in that vein. European Commission fines plastic bag makers, and presents evidence that managers knew their actions were illegal. … Read More
Sacre Bleu! Top Paris Hotels Fined for Price Fixing
The French Competition Council fined six very fancy hotels between 55,000 and 248,000 Euro for illegally colluding to maintain high prices. How high? Over E700 (about $850) per night. These are some of the finest hotels in the world and … Read More
SAP Buy Khimetrics
ERP giant SAP picked up retail price optimization software maker Khimetrics in a deal worth an estimated $80-$100 million. SAP and Oracle have been acquiring companies in the retail software space recently, seeking to build up a complete retail offering. … Read More
What GM Should Do
Regular readers will know that I’ve been lambasting automakers’ “Employee Pricing” programs as counterproductive. (One even sent in a link to this article from investment site Motley Fool. When investment sites blame your pricing strategy, it’s well past time to … Read More