Bell Tech Pricing

[Dimitri Rotow]

In article <294 at gandalf.littlei.UUCP>, martin at littlei.UUCP (martin) writes:
> With all the discussion recently about unix for 386 flavorings I decided
> to do some price getting.  Bell Tech has been advertising Unix in almost
> all of the Unix trade rags.  The add says "UNIX for as low as $145".  After
> hearing about the price hikes for Microport and other vendors, it sounded
> cheap.  I called the folks up and asked them how much for just a software
> distribution (not the X package or additional non-v.3.? packages).  They
> told me $235.  I asked them what I could get for the advertised price of
> $145 and they said "Just the AT&T license".  Well that does alot of good!
> I can't insert the license into the PC and boot it... (humor).  Currently
> they are only shipping v.3.0 with 3.1 due out at the end of July.
> 

The pricing makes sense if (like most of our customers) you are buying more
than one copy of UNIX.  If you are bringing up 10 machines, you only need 
one copy of distribution media ($45) and ten licenses at $145 each.  This
saves you $450.  You would prefer we charged you for ten copies of media
you don't need?  Note that our $145 price includes ALL of UNIX as defined
in SVID, including RFS, TLI, and Streams, all of the development tools,
link kit, vi, and much other wonderful stuff.  Note also that in the above
scenario you don't need to purchase 10 copies of (redundant) UNIX documen-
tation.  Most people would buy one set for reference, a few extra System
Administration guides, a few extra User or Programmer References, and save
a few thousand dollars.  Source code to the device drivers (Interactive's
386/ix AT device drivers) is still only $5,000 or only $250 to universities
qualifying for the free UNIX deal from AT&T.  Distribution on cartridge
tape is the same price as on floppy media.  Enjoy! 

- Dimitri Rotow, Bell Technologies