RE: Issues with distribution of technical documents

["Lurker writer" <lurker_writer -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

Documentation as a profit center? I may be taking a view without sufficient 
awareness of the existence of any actual documentation profit centers, but I 
don't see it.

We tried this at a former employer. We were going to give the customers all 
the documentation on a CD-ROM for free, and charge them $65 each for the 
hard copy user manual and the programmer's reference manual (they were for a 
microprocessor used in printers, faxes, scanners). Actual print/ship costs 
were faaaaaaar below that.

Our customers had a fit. They wanted hard copy documentation and they wanted 
it free. If we wanted to charge $10 for the CD, that was OK.

We live in a widget-driven world, not a documentation driven world. It it 
were true, we could treat developers and engineers like red-headed 
step-children!! (OK, just kidding) True, there may be some markets where 
customers are charged the printing cost of the hard copy manuals, but a 
profit center? This just sounds like an attempt to "wag the dog."

I may be missing something completely here, and please let me know if I am, 
but the only way I can see documentation ever being a profit center is if 
you charge $XX dollars for the manual, and then give the product away 
absolutely free of charge.



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