http://www.embeddedinsights.com/channels/2012/01/25/do-you-employ-%e2%80%9cbrown-mms%e2%80%9d-in-your-designs/ Shedding Light on the Hidden World of Embedded Systems Mon, 28 Jul 2014 16:18:37 -0400 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://www.embeddedinsights.com/channels/2012/01/25/do-you-employ-%e2%80%9cbrown-mms%e2%80%9d-in-your-designs/#comment-12660 L.R. @ LI Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:13:16 +0000 http://www.embeddedinsights.com/channels/?p=683#comment-12660 I think there is a rather simple test to see if a specific vendor accessories requirements is technically justified or a commercial scam - take the example of printers - look at the cost of the printer, and the cost of consumables over its estimated use period. In one particular example (a laser printer from Brother), the cost of a single replacement drum is more than the cost of a brand new printer. Cross-subsidization is illegal in some jurisdictions, and yet there is no shortage of examples of such practice - in the printer case the vendor is in effect subsidizing the price of entry by an increase in the cost of ownership, and at the same time invites low-cost alternative competitors for the consumables. There are more examples of cross-subsidization in our industry than time would allow me to mention, with the oldest probably being the IBM vs. Amdahl case, and the most recent would be Google giving away systems software it had developed for a revenue gain from search-based advertising. This is a broad and interesting topic, but it is unclear how it may actually relate to real-time or embedded systems. I think there is a rather simple test to see if a specific vendor accessories requirements is technically justified or a commercial scam – take the example of printers – look at the cost of the printer, and the cost of consumables over its estimated use period. In one particular example (a laser printer from Brother), the cost of a single replacement drum is more than the cost of a brand new printer.
Cross-subsidization is illegal in some jurisdictions, and yet there is no shortage of examples of such practice – in the printer case the vendor is in effect subsidizing the price of entry by an increase in the cost of ownership, and at the same time invites low-cost alternative competitors for the consumables.
There are more examples of cross-subsidization in our industry than time would allow me to mention, with the oldest probably being the IBM vs. Amdahl case, and the most recent would be Google giving away systems software it had developed for a revenue gain from search-based advertising.
This is a broad and interesting topic, but it is unclear how it may actually relate to real-time or embedded systems.

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