Quote:
Originally Posted by BoldlyDubious
In my hypothesis, teachers (or employees of a company with high use of printed paper) receive the device from their employer for free, and are encouraged (or forced...) to reduce the number of copies and prints they require.
Let's say that one page of a copy or print costs 1 cent (of dollar or euro) and that each teacher prints 100 pages a day (average over 365 days of the year). That's 1 dollars or euros per day per teacher. Suppose that having the ereader halves the number of prints. This leads to save 0.5 dollars/euros per day per teacher. In a year, that's 182.5 dollars/euros.
If the ereader has a life of 3 years, the total saving is 3 x 182.5 = 547.5 dollars/euros. So, if the university (or whatever) can buy the device at 500 dollars/euros (for bulk purchases of 1000 items), it saves on prints and copies. So maybe it will buy them.
However, something that costs 500 dollars/euros when bought in batches of 1000, will probably cost double that figure to the consumer buying just one ereader...
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Well, I don't know what your experience working for a university is like, but in mine they could never force the university to adapt a single device, no matter how rational and economical the argument. Each and every department reserve the right to decide what is introduced and what isn't. So it would take more than a year before something like the Sony could be adapted even within a single department.
Don't get me wrong, I completely agree with your calculations, and obviously the savings will be that much bigger when you consider the material distributed among students. One paper and 40 students, the math becomes kind of obvious. Hence, my argument that this device has to be obtainable for the students in order to be a success.
Now, in the business world, as HarryT pointed out, it is a different story. But if memory serves the success of the iPad was mainly due to BYOD. Not that companies bought it in bulk for their employees.