Re: Looper development and production costs?

[Tom Ritchford <tom@swirly.com>]

>it always comes from somebody who's never actually done such a project.

Well, I have done such projects.  Check my resume.  
http://TomRitchford.com.



>>That's a really good designer and a lot of time and that's only
>>$5000.  That might get you one MONTH of a decent software
>>engineer and no QA person at all.
>
>and
>
>>If two programmers and two engineers worked on the unit for two years
>>and cost $60,000 each a year (including FICA, benefits and all -- this
>>is below market rates) then the whole thing cost 2*2*2*$60,000
>>or $480,000 which means that each of these dozen features cost
>>$40,000 to make.
>
>uh, what decade are you talking about? You have to go to the third 
>world to find good embedded real-time software engineers or good dsp 
>engineers or good hardware engineers who work that cheap. Maybe you 
>can get somebody who writes windows apps or java script for that 
>price, but the salary paid for specialized skills and experience you 
>need for developing something like the EDP are at least double that. 
>Where I live it's even higher. for good contractors, you're talking 
>$150 - $300/hour.

Yes, of course, I write computer code myself.

I deliberately chose low-ball numbers to be unfair to my own argument...
so that I'd get a number you couldn't possibly dispute as being too high.

If I used realistic numbers, you'd get something like 1 feature == 
$100,000.

and then my argument would go:  "by that measure, you should be
willing to spend $100,000 on design".

I imagine that result would have been even less attractive to you.



>>The EDP had to have SOME sort of front panel design made up
>>and something was printed on it.  That had to cost you something.
>
>no, not really. I did it myself because I believed design was 
>important, much as you and Mark have been saying, and other people 
>didn't. Mostly I did it in my spare time, but I didn't get paid much 
>anyway in those days so it probably wouldn't have made a difference.

I didn't mean that you paid for the design, I mean that it costs you
to put ANY sort of design printed on a case.  My guess was $2 a case.
For another $2 you could have had, say, a second color.



>in fact, that has been my plan for a long time. I love deceptive 
>marketing and sales tricks. Probably all we need to add is a pointy 
>read bubble with "New and Improved!" in the middle. Or maybe the 
>Digital Pro Plus XL?

You don't have to be dishonest about it to want to publicize the fact that
you have a dramatic new rev to the operating system which you've put
a lot of work into!

        /t


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