You know it happens, and in fact you may have seen it yourself: a customer interested in purchasing a Mac is steered instead towards the Wintel offerings by the store employees. You may have chalked up the whole ugly incident to PC bigotry, and that can certainly factor into the equation-- but it's not the whole story. In many cases, the salesperson's motive for pushing the Wintel systems is primarily a financial one. Say the store has a huge overstock of Presarios; the manager may offer cash bonuses to the sales staff for each Presario they can push out the door. More likely, however, if a salesperson is pushing a few particular systems, it's because the manufacturers of those systems are offering "spiffs."

A spiff is a "cash incentive" (read: "bribe") offered to retail salesfolk in order to get them to move a certain product. If you've ever wandered into CompUSA looking to buy a new Power Mac and the sales representative tried really hard to get you to buy, say, an HP Pavilion instead, it may have been because that salesperson would receive a $50 spiff if he or she could have changed your mind. It doesn't sound entirely kosher, does it? But that's the way the game is played-- by everyone except Apple. Historically, Apple has refrained from offering spiffs, and that may have been a contributing factor to the Mac's meager slice of the retail pie. Whether they were taking the moral high ground or they just didn't have their act together is open for debate.

Good news, though-- now that Apple's back in the consumer game and they've tasted blood, they're ready to deal. According to MacInTouch readers, Apple is finally offering spiffs in an effort to bolster Mac sales this holiday season. Retail salespeople will get $30 for every iMac they sell before the end of the year; PowerBooks carry a $50 bounty. Is it possible we'll start seeing salespeople who are actually trying to sell Mac equipment? Strange but true. Apple really seems to be treating this holiday sales season as a "make or break" battle in the war of public opinion.

If you've ever desperately needed to check your email while you're on the bus, you might want to consider a less stressful career choice. Nevertheless, it happens-- situations arise in which Internet access would be incredibly helpful, but circumstances prevent you from getting online. The way we see it, you can either 1) petition your city government to add working phone jacks inside every municipal bus, or 2) investigate wireless net access options. And if you're so busy that you're really thinking about answering your email on the bus, you probably don't have time for the former option.

So isn't it interesting that Apple's now rumored to be adding wireless Internet capabilities to next year's consumer portable system, code-named P1? According to Mac OS Rumors, P1 may include a "standard analog cellular connection" or Apple may provide an "Apple-cobranded cellular phone" that can provide a wireless Internet connection via the P1's infrared port. Either way, the upshot is you'll be able to check your stock portfolio while grabbing lunch at the local Wendy's. Take the rumor with a big grain of salt, though, because if all the rumors about P1 were true (DVD-ROM drive capable of playing movies to the LCD screen or to a TV set, pressure-sensitive screen allowing handwriting input, etc.), it would cost more than today's high-end PowerBooks-- and Apple wants to keep the price point near $1000.

Probably what we find strangest about these latest rumors is the prospect that a "mover and shaker" technology like wireless Internet access would be added to a consumer product before it makes it into the professional line. Granted, there are going to plenty of people using the P1 for professional purposes (ourselves included), but if the thing is really aimed at the home crowd, who are they targeting with cellular net access? Internet junkies who want to be able to surf the web for fun while riding the crosstown bus? Not that we're complaining-- that bus ride's pretty dull.

The hot topic in the tech world is, of course, the ongoing negotiations between AOL, Sun, and Netscape. Apparently AOL and Sun are trying to decide whether or not to buy Netscape; if the deal goes through (for something like $4 billion in stock), AOL would probably run Netcenter and distribute Navigator, while Sun would take over Netscape's server software. You can learn more from an Associated Press article, or just about anywhere else on the web.

Negotiations have been proceeding for at least a couple of weeks now, and while some reports say the deal could close before Thanksgiving, others are saying that the buyout isn't likely to happen at all. We're all just going to have to wait for the other shoe to drop on this one. We're not entirely sure how we feel about the prospect of Netscape being owned by AOL (given the experiences we've had with AOL in the past), but there's no doubt that such a merger would really knock things for a loop. When word of the negotiations leaked out last week, Netscape's stock shot up ten points in one day; at the same time, we're betting that Microsoft's Internet Explorer team was getting a little edgy. After all, the contract between AOL and Microsoft (which bundles IE with AOL's client software) expires next month, at which point AOL is free to bundle any browser it chooses.

Microsoft, of course, is pointing fingers at the negotiations and jumping up and down while screaming, "See? We told you so!" The Redmond Giant has maintained throughout the whole Justice Department affair that they face many "resourceful and capable competitors" (so they can't be guilty of violating antitrust laws, right?) and even went so far as to accuse Netscape, Sun, and AOL of conspiring against them. Netscape's Marc Andreessen has a different take on the negotiations, however: he says Netscape wants the AOL buyout "to use our unique strengths to kick the (expletive) out of the Beast from Redmond that wants to see us both dead." Yeah, but Marc, how do you really feel?