New Oceans

Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller hns at computer.org
Mon Jul 2 10:16:27 CEST 2007


If I read the announcement of Sean correctly,

* only the GTA1 device will be 300 US$ and will be shipped directly  
from Taiwan.
* the GTA2 devices will have local distributors and will cost 450 US$.

Secondly,
a distributor has to handle warranty and marketing, answer phone  
calls, do repairing, has to run his ordering system, pay insurances  
and income taxes, and prepare for currency exchange rate fluctuations  
etc.

This usually adds *** at least 10% ***.

So I would not expect that the GTA2 device is available for less than:

($450 + $20) / 1.34 * 1.19 * 1.10 = 459 EUR

Therefore I would even prepare for 499 EUR and we all can be happy if  
it is less and not more.

Also consider: they have produced 1000 GTA1 devices and want to sell  
them at $300. This is 300 k $ revenue. Does this cover production  
cost? maybe. Does this cover development cost (I would expect that  
they have to pay salaries for at least 10 engineers plus Sean's  
travel expenses...): no.

So, we simply should not expect the device to be the cheapest one we  
can get. And although we have for the first time the freedom to  
install our own software on the Neo devices for free, we (and our  
friends) have to purchase a lot of devices to finance the future  
hardware development! Don't expect that FIC (or anybody else) can and  
will subsidize the new company for years. So we should see any  
additional price tag as the price for openness and as a donation to  
keep the hardware development wheel spinning.

Am 02.07.2007 um 09:16 schrieb Thomas Gstädtner:

> I calculated the costs for germany.
> Think the shipping will be at about USD 20.
> ($300+$20)/1.34*1.19 = € 285
> 1.34 is relation dollar-euro, 1.19 the 19% Import-VAT in germany.
> Mobile phones do not have taxes in the EU.
>
>
> 2007/7/2, Attila Csipa <plists at prometheus.org.yu>: > Starting July  
> 9th, we will launch openmoko.com and start taking orders.
>
>
> There was talk about an European distributor. Will that be a  
> coordinated
> effort and start taking orders on that day too ? Also, it would be  
> good to
> get a confirmation on the Euro prices ( = USD+taxes/duties/shipping/ 
> etc) the
> end customers on the old continent will have.





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