New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer has begun a “preliminary investigation” into whether record labels are colluding to set prices for digital music downloads. I don’t know whether this is based on any evidence, or just Spitzer seeing smoke, assuming … Read More
Monthly Archives: December 2005
Oracle Reversing Course on Software Pricing
Database giant Oracle Corporation announced this week that it is backing off its multicore licensing scheme, and move more towards the industry mainstream. Mulitcore chips essentially pack more than one processor on a chip, causing havoc for pricing models that … Read More
Pricing with Imperfect Information
Pricing theory is extremely compelling if we know what’s going on. The problem with applying the theory is that our information is so far from perfect, it may not even be relevant, accurate, timely, or available. Most often, we attempt … Read More
PriceGrabber Bought for $485M
Retail and financial services firm GUS bought price comparison site operator PriceGrabber for $485M. PriceGrabber allows consumers to compare prices on a wide variety of items. The site makes money through referrals, so in some ways it’s more of an … Read More
Pricing Humor– Rare but Good
For some reason, the pricing field doesn’t have a great reputation for humor. (See this earlier post for one example.) There’s nothing like humor for getting a point across, though. So check out this piece about a funny way to … Read More
Are the Record Companies Right?
Record executives have been pushing to move the iTunes digital music service, which sells songs for $0.99, to a demand-based pricing model, where hit singles would cost more, and rarely bought tunes would cost less (or perhaps they just want … Read More
Teen Swaps Barcodes to Buy iPod for $4.99
According to this story in the Denver Post, a 19-year-old college freshman used barcode printing software to print barcodes for cheap products which he then swapped with the barcodes on expensive products. He was caught because he returned to the … Read More
Price Fixing Roundup
On the heels of yesterday’s post on price fixing in the luxury Paris hotel market, here are a number of other in that vein. European Commission fines plastic bag makers, and presents evidence that managers knew their actions were illegal. … Read More