For years, the Federal Communications Commission has levied a “Universal Service Fee” on phone lines, a small tax on everyone’s bill, every month, to subsidize rural phone lines. The FCC recently decided that these fees would not apply to high … Read More
Monthly Archives: August 2006
Windows Vista Prices Leak on Net
You can’t actually buy the long-delayed new operating system from Microsoft, but this week saw Vista prices revealed. First, the Microsoft Canada site posted prices in Canadian dollars earlier this week, then quickly took down the page, but not before … Read More
Airlines Can’t Make Price Increase Stick
In routine move, 3 major airlines announced small fare increases, but retracted them when competitors did not follow. This is how prices get “coordinated” across the industry. The interesting piece from the WSJ article is the quote from Morgan Stanley … Read More
Orbitz Pricing: Can Anyone Confirm or Deny?
An alert reader forwarded this post from the On Travel blog, about how online travel site Orbitz could be charging more to users who are logged in and therefore perhaps less price sensitive. An alternative explanation is that the lower … Read More
Pricing Quote of the Day
In the middle of a week of temperatures in the 100s, I decided it was time to get some window tint on my car. A prominent sign in the tint shop reads “We have no quarrel with those who charge … Read More
An Unusual Strategy for Software
An alert reader sent in this press release about Schott Systeme a CAD-CAM software vendor, which has held prices constant for a decade and does not charge for support. Annual support charges typically run about 20% of the license fee, … Read More
Not Getting Customer Pricing Complaints
I haven’t heard this, but I have heard things that are almost as absurd (but not quite as funny). Today’s Dilbert.
Hacker Quadruples Car Wash Price
With motives unknown, a hacker apparently managed to change the price of a car wash at a Salt Lake City gas station from $2 to $8. The owners are offerring to reimburse the dozen or so customers who paid the … Read More
Dell Pitches Simpler Pricing, but Still Has a Way to Go
Following on Dell’s recent announcement about simplifying pricing, I got an email from the Texas computer company telling me: New simplified prices on Inspiron notebooks.The end of system mail-in rebates, the start of a great experience. We’ve listened to what … Read More
Cisco Eyes Major Unbundling
Networking giant Cisco, which has long sold routers, switches, and other network equipment as a bundle of hardware and software, is now looking to unbundle the hardware and software components. In theory, this would allow customers to run Cisco software … Read More