On Mon, 6 Jul 2009 22:28:07 -0400, you wrote:

>Hi Mike,
>
>That is pretty much my observation,  too. However, I think it is
>short-sighted. If a large customer is going to buy 100K parts per year
>from you, do you really care about that extra $1000 USD? 

If you were in a position to buy 100k+ parts a year a sales rep would throw
free compilers at you if he thought it would help, but, the cost of a
compiler would be trivial to you anyway. 

I got free tools from Lattice for several years for a single design win for
probably less than 200 parts total, but, it was in what they considered an
important company. 

Giving away a fully optimising compiler to someone who can't afford it
today in the hope that tomorrow they will be buying thousands of parts and
buying them from you and not your competitor is a long shot IMO. 

When I look at posts on the Microchip forum half the people you are giving
compilers to still won't be able to design a circuit or write a working
program tomorrow never mind buy thousands of parts. 

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