BROADCOM (BRCM) Message Board

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To: Stoctrash who wrote (6340)	8/24/2002 2:37:56 PM
From: ftth	of 6521

re: "Wi-Fi chips that eventually could sell for as little as $5." --------- Yeah, it's a pretty interesting commentary on the state of things. Here you have a highly complex device that wasn't even conceivable for any reasonable cost not so many years ago, and was developed by many highly-skilled people over thousands of man-hours, and it will soon be $5 a copy. Compare that to music CDs, where you have one maybe two songs out of 10 that are any good, that is used for maybe 3-6 months for a few minutes at a time and then mostly collects dust, and was 'designed' by a few high-school drop outs and a cheesy promoter. For some reason this sells for a 200% premium over the WiFi chip, and will still be the same cost if you want to buy it 5 years from now. Why people continue to pay these excessive monopoly margins for entertainment appetizers with such a short shelf life--while demanding continuously lower prices for things with a much longer-lasting value proposition and % utilization--is a mystery to me. But, you might say that I'm biased.