Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cubanlord]

Let's hear it.

[Bulsajo]

Too lazy to Google? Must be a Sunday.

Short answer: Pro is better.

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp

[cubanlord]

[mindmetoo]

Better is a matter of what you want to do with it. Play games, surf the net, and word process, XP Pro might be an unnecessary expense.

Pro vs Home is a classic example of "product crimping". A manufacturer purposely cripples their product to release it at a lower price point. It doesn't cost Microsoft anything more to burn a CD of Pro over a CD of Home. Microsoft had to first pony up the expense to develop the pro version. That's already a sunk cost. Then they had to pay EXTRA MONEY for some developers and testers to create a Home edition. In terms of warehousing, distribution management, and promotion it additionally costs them more to maintain two lines.

However, Microsoft can variously eek out a few more dimes out of the corporate user or lower the price of the Home edition to a level where Home users will pay but it would seem the deal of the century to corporations.

What makes product crimping a slightly more irritating ploy is when a company actually adds some additional hardware or manufacturing step to make the model at the cheaper price point slightly "crippled" compared to the more expensive item. In essence the cheaper product really costs more to make.

The classic example of product crimping is the Intel 486 chip. Intel released a cheaper 486SX chip at a lower price point. The chip was the same chip that rolled off the 486DX line except an additional step in the manufacturing processes was added to turn off the 486SX's math coprocessor.

An older example from computer history goes back to the classic days of the floppy disk. Floppy disks (5 1/4" and 3 1/2") were sold as either single sided or double sided. Double sided were noticeably more expensive. The difference between single- and double-sided disks was the double-sided product had another hole punched on the other edge. People quickly realized if you punched your own hole in a single-sided floppy, you made it a double-sided floppy. Manufacturers tried to claim this was a bad idea as the reason single sided were sold as such was because the integrity of the media was only tested on one side. Computer journalists quickly countered this notion by pointing out that on single-sided floppies, PC drives read the bottom and Macs read the top (or maybe it was the other way around.... but you get the point). Since manufacturers didn't market disks for PC or Mac only, they had to be testing both sides regardless.

Sony did something similar in the '90s with its minidisks (albeit there was no cheap simple work around this time like drilling a hole or buying a "double sider" punching device). It sold 60-minute and 74-minute minidiscs. The 74-minute disks were $1.50 more. However, the media was exactly the same, save for some special coding on the 60-minute disk that told a recorder not to write to a portion of the disk. Assholes.

One of the most notorious examples of product crimping was IBM's printer division. It released a crimped E-model version of its popular 10-page-per-minute laser printer. The E model printed at half the speed. However, to create a 5-page-per minute E model, IBM had to add 5 additional chips to the printer to actually slow it down.

Although product crimping is much more common these days as consumers have become extremely price conscious, another classic example of product crimping goes all the way back to the '70s (or earlier). Back in the day when one had a choice between leaded and unleaded gas, leaded was several cents cheaper than unleaded. The consumer perception was unleaded gas had to have the lead removed from it, hence making it more expensive to refine. However, all gas is unleaded. Lead has to be added (it was used as a lubricant), at additional cost, to make leaded gas. Petro marketers likely preyed on the public's poor understanding of the difference between "un-" and "de-" (as in decaffeinated). Fortunate for the oil companies, as consumers became aware of this odd pricing strategy, leaded gas was ultimately legislated out of existence, saving the oil companies of having to face a massive class action lawsuit.

A somewhat related pricing strategy is the idea of punishing consumers for paying less. It works a bit like this. It wouldn't cost a car company anything extra to put a sporty aluminum shell that looks like, say, a Ferrari on a Volkswagen Golf drive train. Low end cars have low profit margins. However, car buyers tend to be highly brand loyal. Once a GM driver, always a GM driver. These buying habits are also generational. People talk of GM families. So low end cars are meant to capture young car buyers and lock them in for life as automotive consumers. So if you give low end car buyers a hot looking car, they won't have any desire to move up the value chain, buying car that looks cool on the outside but has all the high profit bells and whistles of a real sports car.

[Demophobe]

Wow. You could have just said you didn't know.

[mindmetoo]

[Gord]

[mindmetoo]

[Wrench]

Huge difference...

XP home support will be gone as soon as Vista is out.

XP pro will be good for a long time.