Sony needs to get all of their ducks in a row. Talking about a price drop openly isn't exactly the best policy, unless you plan to do it very soon. But, 80k could be the bottom, just like 8k a week in Japan appears to be the bottom there.

I've already said all that. I very clearly stated that non-electrical component prices would remain static, and while the proper definition on the rest isn't still "Moore's Law" once it's applied outside of transistors, the price curve is relevent to other tech on the average over an extended period of time. It's called a "corollary." I know it's not "Moore's Law," I've said that three times now, I just figured it'd be presumptuous of me to call it "Dryden's Law." I did not apply it to an entire electronic device as you hint, either. In fact, I quite clearly broke up the device according to industry supplied numbers to detail which components would probably see price reduction from applying the principle and which ones would not.

Semantics. This isn't very hard to understand. I have seen the practice before, it has been termed "Moore's Law Corollary" and "Accounting in the Age of Moore's Law," and was popularized around 1997 or 1998.

And sorry, your resume in the post before this one isn't compelling. Did you drop that line to impress me? If you've been buying equipment for a 25 computer business for only three years, you have not been in the business long enough or with a large enough company to make a fair observation. 25 computers is *squat.*

I've been building computers for far longer than that. I just did it for an entire company for about three years after their last tech guy left and I was capable of taking it over (amongst my other duteis). I realize 25 computers aren't many, but it definitely gave me a clear understanding of the rate in which computer components drop in price.

And in the case of HDDs and RAM, it ain't by half.

Here, look at this:

256 SDRAM $39

http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?imodule=CT32M64S4D7E

512 DDR $79

http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?imodule=BL6464L505

1GB DDR2 $112

http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?imodule=BL12864AA1065

Notice any gross inconsistencies in your argument? How old is that SDRAM? Seven years yet it's still well over 1/3rd the price of DDR2 for a proportionately smaller stick? How old is that DDR? Three years yet it's still over 60% of the price of DDR2 for a proportionatly smaller stick?

Here's more:

An article from November 2000 stating that PC133 SDRAM is $84 from Crucial.
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2000nov/chi20001109002845.htm

Price for the same stick today from Crucial ($25):
http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?imodule=CT16M64S4D7E

That's nearly 30% of the price 6 1/2 years later. A price that, according to your Moore's Law Corrollary, should be around 10% of the price in 2000.

Anecdotal, you're quoting one site with individual prices for individual modules. You can just as easily find 256Mb PC133 for ~$15-20. You're also selecting a very specific chip from each generation. Why don't you choose a 512Mb PC3200 (even from Crucial Direct) to represent the common 2005-era module? Would it be because its just $43, which is even less than half of the 1Gb DDR2 module you priced. Heck, why not choose better top end modern-era RAM at $200?

You're clearly failing to grasp terms like "trend" and "average" and instead interpreting them as "literal price according to this price guide right here!!!11!!!!111 shift one"

Of course the price doesn't literally convert to half right down to the penny! But the overall price of all the circuit-based components is halved as an average of each ones' individual rate of depreciation, which has surprisingly been steady at ~50% every two years for over four decades.

I was having a hard time remembering exactly which RAM modules in DDR were released on certain dates.

Besides, I found an exact link with dates that shows RAM does not depreciate at a 50% rate from the same company. I don't know how much more obvious it can get than that. I am using Crucial because their pricing is consistent and they've been one of the leading RAM retailers for years. 

The problem with cutting prices every time you have cost reduction is you make your product a commodity, like Dell. The consumer will expect you to constantly reduce prices and your profit margins will always remain thin.

Contrast that with making your product desirable at the pricepoint you define, like Apple. Your profit margins stay healthy and allows you to define the marketplace, not be a slave to it.

Anyway, this argument is getting tangential. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one. Let's get back on topic.

That works when you're a niche market like Apple. When you're competing in a broader market (think Dell vs. HP vs. Gateway) and when you rely on third parties to make a platform viable, you can't paint yourself into a corner with non-competitive pricing or hardware. Look at what happened to Gateway.

Look at Apple's marketshare. It was down to 3% for years. It currently sits around 5% last I checked, but that's still nothing in the grand scheme of things. Apple is dominating right now because of its non-Mac equipment. Macs aren't hugely profitable for them at all.