Following our earlier post on the impact of pricing pressure on Dell, an alert reader sent in this comparison yesterday: Dell Inspiron E1405:14.1″ screen (1280×800)Core Duo 1.831 GB RAM (can’t get 512)80 GB HDTotal cost: $1540 MacBook:13.3″ screen (1280×800)Core Duo … Read More
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Dude, Your Dell Is Going to Be Cheap!
Traders punished Dell stock this week after the Texas computer giant announced that a tough pricing environment would impact earnings. Dell does need to restablish its reputation in the consumer and small business markets, where its once sterling reputation for … Read More
Pricing Fixing Fallout: Samsung Execs to Jail
Three executives from Samsung pleaded guilty to price fixing in the memory chip market. The execs will serve 7-8 months in jail and pay fines of $250,000 each. (Samsung earlier agreed to a $300M fine.) There’s nothing like a little … Read More
Pricing Dispute Hurts Lear Results
A customer pricing dispute increased auto-part supplier Lear’s 2005 loss by $6M, the company reported today. According the Lear, the customer made a unilateral “pricing adjustment,” withholding payment on parts ordered for a product line that is no longer in … Read More
Metreo Acquired by Holding Group
Symphony Technology Group, a holding company in Palo Alto, California, acquired neighbor Metreo, after Metreo put its assets up for sale following a default on a loan. Symphony replaced Metreo CEO Daphne Carmelli, who will remain as a consultant to … Read More
Metreo “Hits Wall”, Assets to Be Liquidated
Metreo, former darling of the venture capital community, will be liquidated by creditors this week after failing to make debt payments. The MSNBC report illustrates the danger of plotting growth curves for very small companies: The company had reported revenue … Read More
Oracle Reversing Course on Software Pricing
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
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
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