No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Michael Gartenberg | September 16, 2005, 03:10 PM

By now there's a been a lot of buzz about the $149 offer of an i-Mate JasJar at the PDC (aka, HTC universal) a device that normally sells for over $1,000. Despite being told not to, a lot of folks left the keynote early to buy one and the 1,000 or so devices sold out in less than an hour. The end result was a lot of ill-will among attendees.

The big mistake Mcrosoft made (other than not listening to mom who always said, "don't hand out goodies if you don't have enough for the whole class" and it seems that getting enough was just not possible) was the price point. At $149 for this audience, it was an impulse buy. Heck, I have one and would have bought one for $149 if I was eligible. The real lack of planning was not pricing this at $499. That way with a limited supply, only those truly interested (and not looking for a quick ebay flip) would buy, folks would have thought twice and not mobbed and pretty much everyone would have been happy. At that price, it's still a hefty discount, so good value for the folks interested. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished. Microsoft did try and do a good thing here for the attendees, it was just some poor judgement on the market for this at the event and the correct pricing model.