Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenophon
There's also the issue of support. PVI/E-Ink surely expects to be selling this kit to vendors who are intending to build E-Ink devices. That means that they also expect to be fielding support calls on everything from software to configuration to electrical issues to...
And it doesn't take very many phone calls to burn through an awful lot of money! Especially since they probably give (relatively) quick access to technical staff to resolve these questions. After all, the typical user of the dev kit is expected to be an equipment OEM, so there could be big sales attached.
The price is high mostly so that they don't need to staff up to handle large call volumes. And so that the calls they do get are highly likely to be correlated with future hardware sales.
Been there (on the side of the company producing the dev-kit, that is), done that, have many t-shirts.
Xenophon
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Then they should have a 'minimal-free-support' version which requires you 'pay-as-you-go' for more than 3-5 support calls. Hey, if a person/company wants to develop a custom e-ink reader, they should expect to have a certain level of development knowledge or be willing to involve friends, co-workers, etc.
Let's consider a 'minimal' devkit running $200 ($100 for the display module, $100 for a user-supplied SBC (single-board-computer) to run the OS and apps. *I'D* buy one to be able to create my own 'steampunk' ebook reader - wouldn't you? And if I rolled-my-own from the source of OI, Madshelf and FBReader/CoolReader, I'd be able to embed custom Secure Mobipocket and Secure eReader support into in.
Derek