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It's a funny world when Elon Musk will openly display "$90M to send 6.4mT of your shit into geosynchronous orbit"[0] and yet millions of businesses selling thin
by desdiv 10y ago
It's a funny world when Elon Musk will openly display "$90M to send 6.4mT of your shit into geosynchronous orbit"[0] and yet millions of businesses selling things that are far less expensive and far more fungible want you to "contact our sales team for a quote".
[0] http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities http://www.spacex.com/about/capabilities
- sosborn 10y agoWell, that's a bit apples to oranges. You don't have many options for sending shit into space.
- restalis 10y agoBut there can be! Say, they entice customers to bid into a collective launch and then scheme you into all kind of price conditions depending on your load, service priority, or whatnot. ...actually, the more I think about it, this may be a business idea in itself, for the poor suckers who don't afford a solitary launch!
- lmm 10y agoPutting x tonnes into geosynchronous orbit is about as fungible as it gets. There wouldn't necessarily be any custom work at all (in practice there's integration work but if you're using a standard satellite bus that can be pretty standard).
- creshal 10y agoThat's already more known unknowns than most software vendors have. 95% really boils down to "x licenses of package y, options z and w, additional support at n dollars/hour", which you can put on your website just fine. The "sales teams" are often glorified speech-to-text lackeys that just feed your numbers to an excel sheet, read back the result and then make you believe you're getting special treatment. It's different for software that actually needs integration of some sort (SAP, most of the IBM portfolio, …) but SaaS startups doing this shit are just deluding themselves.
- arethuza 10y agoThe costs for ERP, large CRM and similar projects are often implementation costs (in the widest sense of implementation - not just "developing stuff"). The licensing costs are significant but can be a small percentage of the overall costs.
- mavhc 10y agoThe difference is whether they'll let you have a copy of the spreadsheet
- gizmo 10y agoElon Musk is transparent about SpaceX prices because they are much cheaper than the competition. There is no similar clarity of pricing with Tesla Motors or SolarCity. With Tesla Musk has a habit of advertising the price of the base model after tax credits have been subtracted, which is kind of misleading. The rule is to be clear about pricing when it works in your advantage and to obfuscate otherwise.
- cstejerean 10y agoThe price for a Tesla including all options is easily available on the website. You don't have to contact a sales person to find out the price. I have no idea about Solar City.
- rgbrenner 10y agowell here's their website: http://www.solarcity.com/ http://www.solarcity.com/ you have to schedule a consultation if you want prices.
- st3v3r 10y agoI imagine that's because there are more variables with a solar installation than with a car that has clearly defined options.
- alphydan 10y agoPricing for solar panels is quite complex. The price will mostly involve: - The state of the roof (does it need reinforcing? will the installers need scaffolding?) - The complexity of the installation (lots of little roof sections with earth tiles and 2 or 3 transformers? Or a plain and simple one-transformer south facing asphalt roof?) - Does the crew need to drive 5h from headquarters? Or just 1h? - A 3kW installation may be worthwhile in some locations but not in others. And finally since solar city depends on the performance of the panels (which they sell as debt), they must ensure that your house will be a good candidate. If it's not, they don't want you as a customer.
- J_Darnley 10y ago> mT Is that millitonnes, more commonly known as kilograms?
- xenophonf 10y agoI think that means metric tons, which gives a much more reasonable payload size of 6400 kg.
- lisivka 10y agoIt cannot be metric ton, because "mT" is not a SI unit.
- tomswartz07 10y agoIt's metric ton, as in one thousand kilograms. That's to illustrate the difference between an imperial ton, which is 2000 lbs (or ~907kg).
- gregmac 10y ago> It's metric ton, as in one thousand kilograms. Or (unfortunately not) better known as one megagram.
- xenophonf 10y agoIt cannot be 6.4 kilograms, because the launch mass of the average geosynchronous satellite is on the order of 5000 kg, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSS-7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSS-7, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_901 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelsat_901, http://www.ilslaunch.com/node/4289 http://www.ilslaunch.com/node/4289 (Inmarsat 5-F2).
- brajesh 10y agometric ton (1000 kg)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]