Dr Prahalad and top of the pyramid!

we indians have the great ability to poke holes at the works of successful people. this is no such attempt but something i genuinely feel . dr prahalad is certainly a great management guru and peter drucker says his work is seminal.

i had purchased the book "fortune at the bottom of the pyramid" a long time ago but never got down to actually reading it. i have been reading rave reviews about it everywhere and seen it feature regularly among the CEOs reading picks in many business magazines.

i picked up the book and leafed through the pages and saw the innocuous pencil mark of the pricing - Rs 500. it really hit me hard. why would somebody who preaches the merits of the bottom of the pyramid price his book at rs 500. wouldnt it be better if he had priced it at rs 20 for a pdf version on the web. couldnt it be priced so low that it can be found with every management student and those associated with the profession in india and abroad. wouldnt this be a larger market? i only have such questions and i think it will be difficult for me to get convincing answers even if i ever read the book.