[Arm-netbook] pricing on eoma68 cards

[Paul Sokolovsky]

Hello,

On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 12:30:51 +0100
"luke.leighton" <luke.leighton at gmail.com> wrote:

[]
> > On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 5:30 AM, Roman Mamedov <rm at romanrm.ru>
> > wrote:
> > "Targets a BOM cost of $15" as written on the web site does not
> > mean "will sell to end users for $15". Of course there are other
> > things involved in a cost of the board other than just Bill of
> > Materials (e.g. also work; transportation - of semi-finished
> > boards, I don't mean 'shipping' here; testing, etc; and profit
> > margin). And BOM is just the cost of bare parts (not
> > even put together), and that, only when they are bought in the
> > thousands,
> >
> >
> it wasn't even that!  it was "we were told that a tablet ***COULD***
> be $15".  not "we are aiming for $15".  actually it was "we were told
> that a tablet could be $15 and a laptop could be $20" - it might have
> been $22, i forget now, it was a while back.
> 
> we don't actually know how they calculated that $15 BOM.  it was
> probably by leaving out every connector except one USB port, booting
> off of SD and providing 256mb of RAM.
> 
> But I can understand that you are concerned some people will only
> remember
> > the
> > number and will ask "wasn't it supposed to be $15".
> >
> >
> yes.  exactly.  and so we may be accused of mis-selling and end up
> being sued.  so - jean-luc: please take that mis-information off your
> web site.


I guess, in this context it would be helpful for readers to provide
some ideas how to go from BOM cost to an end user price. I'd quote
Bunnie Huang from his Chumby postmortem interview:

"strive for 3x over BOM. You’ve put your heart and soul into your
product, price it like you mean it." (comes with context:
http://blog.makezine.com/2012/04/30/makes-exclusive-interview-with-andrew-bunnie-huang-the-end-of-chumby-new-adventures/)


That covers things Roman mentioned in the starting quote and some more.
It was pretty insightful for me, to not rush into "hardware startup"
business - it may seem that parts are cheap, but putting them together
in sustainable manner is whole damn work, and end result is not that
competitive unless you already have customers.

Otherwise, it ends like this:
http://www.microbuilder.eu/blog/11-05-08/Tools_for_the_lean_hardware_startup.aspx
So, the guys wanted to teach world how to do lean hardware startuping,
but 2 years later, barely a sign of their web site left, not even
attentioning-whoring tech pr0n spread over internets helped them.

Oh, and microBuilder himself recently shared insight that his last
project already at 20+KEUR expenses
http://www.microbuilder.eu/Blog/13-03-14/LPC1xxx_1GHZ_Wireless_Board_Preview.aspx
- there're no BGAs, DDR3s and HDMIs there, guy just throws couple of
QFNs on a simple (even if 4-layer) board.


Well, Luke can (and does) share similar insights, just few bits of
3rd-party evidence...

> 
> many thanks.
> 
> l.



-- 
Best regards,
 Paul                          mailto:pmiscml at gmail.com