E. G. Cale

Econometric models of the U.S. computer market have been developed to study the relationships between system price and hardware performance. Single measures of price/performance such as “Grosch's Law” are shown to be so oversimplified as to be meaningless. Multiple-regression models predicting system cost as a function of several hardware characteristics do, however, reveal a market dichotomy. On one hand there exists a stable, price predictable market for larger, general purpose computer systems. The other market is the developing one for small business computer systems, a market which is relatively unstable with low price predictability.