Just another voice-in-the-wind chiming-in here, but my question is,
"At what point did Apple decide the development tools would be free but
the knowledge to use them would represent a profit-center?".
Let's look at the math. Anyone at Apple - please provide real
numbers or any other explanation to dispute these assumptions.
Assume there are videos being taped in 20 different rooms. That
means you need twenty cameras and tripods, twenty people to man them,
twenty video tapes-per-hour and there are 10 sessions per day times 5
days of taping. So, you end up with the cost of twenty cameras, 20
man-weeks of labor, and 1000 hours of tape. That probably overstates
the case, but I don't wish to be accused of underestimating.
20 cameras at $2000 = 40K (Say, can these be used NEXT
year?)
20 man weeks at $1000/wk = 20K (Where do I apply for this
job?)
1000 DV video cassettes ($10/ea) = 10K (Next time let's shop at
WalMart)
---------------------------------- ---
----------------------------------
Materials cost 70K
Post Production = 5 hours per session-hour of post-production for
selected '200 best' sessions (Where do I apply for THIS job?)
1000 man hours @ $50/hour = $50K
DVD Production & Packaging costs = $20K (Can't they just use iDVD?)
Stuff I didn't think of = $60K (Remember, this IS Apple...)
---------------------------------------------
Total cost to create DVD masters = $200K
Total Estimated worldwide count of
Apple Developers who would like
to have access to this info = 5K
Total Number of REAL sales = 1K
Cost of DVDs/Divided by BUYERS = $200
So - WHERE does the $1200 PLUS ADC SELECT MEMBERSHIP per set cost come
from?
The answer: My guess is that there's a baseball cap in some
marketing-director's desk that somehow plays a role in the creation of
the number '1200'.
If the cost of the DVDs is ZERO for WWDC attendees, does $1200 of their
fee to attend then apply to providing those people with a DVD set? Not
likely.
Are they trying to do force all developer's to fly to San Francisco,
rent a hotel room and attend WWDC? Not likely.
Are the rest of the Apple Developers being asked to underwrite the
overall cost of WWDC? That's a possibility.
But, at the $1200+ADC Select membership price-point, in terms of the
number of developers who actually BUY the DVD package, I don't think
the DVD sales-effort is emulating a hotcake stand.
So, what's the result? The DVD packages sit there on the Apple
shipping dock shelves and the developers sit in their chair, ignorant
of important developer information that might make them more production
or more technically sophisticated, and the products available in the
Apple software world do not enjoy the prosperous growth they might.
Charging that much money for the DVDs simply further promotes the
institution of Apple's 'Secret Inside Club Of The Cool Guys'. What's
the point in doing that when Apple is teetering on the brink of a 5%
marketshare?
Well - those are my opinions - I hope to not have overstated the case
and certainly don't mean to offend anyone at Apple, but my thought is
this situation is the result of some less-than-reality-based
decision-making.
Best Regards,
Lance Drake
-----------------------------------------------------------
BTW - I am looking to buy a set of the DVDs from the 2003 WWDC.
Does anyone have such a dust-laden box of same in their bookcase
they might wish to exchange for the reasonable sum of $200?
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