From owner-freebsd-hackers  Tue May 13 17:52:57 1997
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To: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org>
cc: dennis@etinc.com (dennis), msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au,
        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: if_de.c ???? 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 13 May 1997 16:17:29 PDT."
             <199705132317.QAA11304@phaeton.artisoft.com> 
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Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 17:50:08 -0700
From: Amancio Hasty <hasty@rah.star-gate.com>
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>From The Desk Of Terry Lambert :
> > Because they posted $1.40 loss per share last quarter, and haven't
> > had a profitable quarter in a year. Because their stock, which was 
> > trading at 28 at the start of '95, is now hovering around 8. Because
> > no matter what you think their economies of scale are, they cant
> > compete with Taiwanese labor costs, and cant turn a profit selling
> > against boards that sell for $35.
> 
> 
> I still don't understand why SMC can't use Taiwanese labor so that
> labor costs are no longer a valid discriminator for you, Dennis.
> 
> It costs the same for SMC to buy Taiwanese labor as any other company.
> There is no global "sell Taiwanese labor to anyone but SMC" conspiracy.
> 
> Why can't they sell boards for $35 and make the same profit as the
> clone vendors selling boards for $35?

Within reasonable labor costs (like typically paid in Silicon Valley) it
is very hard to beat production costs for cards like ethernet cards. 
One of my buddies who works at company XYZ did a global survey attempting
to reduce the cost of manufacturing his ethernet cards and came out empty. 
His company manufacturers thousands of cards (exact quantity left out 
on purpose). 

	Cheers,
	Amancio