Wow for the rich and famous I see. $259 is about what a whole laptop costs.
:-)

On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 2:14 AM, Joe Leikhim jleikhim@leikhim.com wrote:

On 11/7/11 7:21 AM, paul swed wrote:

Yes, but then you still need to write the software for that laptop.

Think of it this way.. you're a non-software-developer kind of person
but highly paid.. $100k/yr kind of senior engineer/scientist.

You need a way to interface widget X to your computer to get data into
Excel.
You can pick up the phone and order one of these widgets in 15 minutes,
then, hopefully, spend a half hour or so after it arrives, and your
problem is solved.

Or, you can spend a day thrashing with some sort of Excel macros, or
finding someone to do some coding, etc.

$100k/hr -> about $1000/day..  If the $250 widget and an hour meets the
need, it's a win.

Even if you're a coding wizard and can knock this out in your sleep, it
might still be worthwhile.. if you have limited hours to do things, do
the things that only YOU can do, and let someone else do the rest.
(this is an argument I have with senior microwave engineers wanting to
do their own sysadmin work.. we've got dozens of people who can do
sysadmin work, we have very few who can design 94GHz circuits.. )

On Nov 7, 2011, at 11:30 AM, Jim Lux wrote:

A word of advice - if your senior microwave engineers want to do their own sysadmin work, it is because the people you have doing that work are not doing it to the satisfaction of the microwave engineers.  Most likely, they are in fact making life difficult for the microwave engineers, and interfering with them getting their actual work done.

Fix that problem, and you won't have to worry about highly paid senior engineers doing sysadmin work.

It is a rare company indeed where the sysadmins are told that they are to do what the engineers request, without fighting, whining, or being passive aggressive about it.  Those are the sorts of companies one wants to work for.

Tom Frank, KA2CDK (who most certainly does NOT work for one of those companies)

On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Jim Lux jimlux@earthlink.net wrote:

Might oughta check your math there, buddy. $100K/hr is quite a lot of money
:-)

(just kidding, was obviously a typo)

But, back to the original point - people who sell software have significant
fixed costs and almost no variable costs.  So, if  you only expect to sell
a few copies of a piece of software, it's going to have to be pretty
expensive if you are to break even.

Thanks,
-JP

On 11/7/11 6:24 PM, Justin Pinnix wrote:

Oh no... I guess I misread that last paycheck.. Time to send the fleet
of Ferraris back.

yes..
And for something like the wedge product being mentioned, a lot of what
goes into the cost is probably the downstream support.  You might start
with a fairly simple product, price it at some perceived "pain point",
and strategize that you'll build adapters to whatever weird piece of
gear someone comes up with, and add it to the library.

Maybe they've got a room full of people who know their software real
well, perhaps at fairly moderate wages, and a real good system to do the
high end type support (to the point of having a customer photocopy the
manual and send it to them).  I've not had that particular experience
with this particular company, but I've worked with others where that was
the case (particularly in pre-internet days)  You paid a pretty penny
for the software, but still less than a custom development for your needs.

On 11/7/11 3:48 PM, Thomas A Frank wrote:

(this is an argument I have with senior microwave

Not necessarily.  It might be that what sysadmin services are available
are not sufficiently well advertised.  The institutional services may
have improved, but old habits die hard.

Sometimes there are cost-control aspects to this.  Short term
optimization is nothing new (otherwise we'd not have centuries old
aphorisms about pennies, pounds and wisdom).  Sysadmin is often viewed
as pure cost, not bringing in any revenue. (so is emptying the trash
cans, of course)

Sounds resonable to me for a piece of professional software. I know of companies that have closed protocols on their instruments and charge hundreds of dollars for clunky, buggy software that  only works with an instrument you already paid thousands for. Another trick is odd connectors and "special" i.e. expensive leads. You pay your money and make your choice.
 
Robert G8RPI.

From: paul swed paulswedb@gmail.com
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com
Sent: Monday, 7 November 2011, 15:21
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Serial to Excel utility

Wow for the rich and famous I see. $259 is about what a whole laptop costs.
:-)

On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 2:14 AM, Joe Leikhim jleikhim@leikhim.com wrote:

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