RE: Some fodder for marketing, perhaps

        The reason for the "interactive tax" was so that IBM could
practice price discrimination. Users of applications written in RPG for
the green screen faced high switching costs, but also received the
benefits of a highly differentiated system and so could be charged a
premium. Those using the AS/400 in a non-interactive "server" mode did
not face these switching costs, and the AS/400 is not as highly
differentiated as a "server" so they are unwilling to pay a premium
price. 

        The large discounts that IBM offered for non-interactive use
were an effort to bring their pricing in line with that offered by the
other system vendors for customers that were not locked in. The various
UNIX vendors (and Microsoft with windows) did not have a two tiered
pricing structure because they did not have a customer base that shakes
out into two tiers like IBM does.

Christopher


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To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Some fodder for marketing, perhaps

midrange-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>   6. RE: Some fodder for marketing, perhaps (Jones, John (US))
>
>I have to ask, what kind of "interactive tax" do unix system vendors
>charge for telnet/VT100/VT220 access?  I don't know for sure, but I
>strongly suspect the answer is $0.


AFAIK, you're right. OTOH, one might easily consider any fees for Oracle
to be a "database tax", etc. It was the user community that took to the
term "interactive tax"; so, I suppose any charges beyond base hardware
and operating system could be called a "[some feature] tax".

If I wanted twinax-style terminals and similar device/controller/SNA
support on a unix system, is it available simply by plugging in a
controller card? Or will I need to pay some additional "[unix option]
tax"? I really have no idea. But it's not as meaningful since that's not
the direction things went.

Before the "interactive tax", AS/400s were more or less all priced
similarly. There wasn't as much distinction between the 'server' systems
that had zero/minimum interactive and the systems that sold with a lot
of interactive capability. When the big price difference came about, it
wasn't exactly by IBM suddenly charging _more_ for the interactive
systems and leaving the price point for 'servers' where it was. It came
mostly by IBM drastically _reducing_ the price point of 'server'
systems. (IIRC)

So, it wasn't by adding a "tax"; it was by slashing off a big discount.
Those that didn't need it didn't have to pay for it. Is that concept
different for unix vendors?

Tom Liotta