joseluisjazz said:
Are you saying that the $30K (if I remember correctly) invested on developing the custom nubs didn't include the drivers sourcecode? I thought the nubs rights and/or design belonged to you.
Not always. I'm developing a piece of software for a client. The client also does not own the source. If they want the source, thats a extra amount of pay. That happens a lot, because else there is the danger that a customer will resell the software that you developed at cutthroat prices ( not exactly fun if the development takes a year & half ). If a customer wants the source, the price goes up. If they want the source, and the right to resell the product, well, think 4 or 5 times the development price.
30K for the development of a piece of hardware, chip, and software drivers is not exactly expensive. They may have a simulate deal. The nub, chip, software is developed for the Pandora, but, to reduce costs for the client ( the Pandora team ), the manufacture keeps the ownership, right and ability to resell the developed product ( and that means they also own the rights on the source ).
So, it all depends on what deal they had with the manufacture. 30k may seem extreme expensive to develop something as "simple" as the nubs, you it takes a lot of time ( aka manpower that needs to be payed ), resources, etc to create a product from scratch. From what i remember, there are no other manufactures of said nubs. Lets see, design the nub, the chip, the driver, create a manufacturing process for the nubs, chip... 30k is probably the bare development cost that the Pandora team had to pay ( probably with little or no profit for the manufacture. They probably get there profit from manufacturing & selling the nubs to other customers ). Its speculation, i know...