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Come Crawling Back (11/21/98)
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Hmm, sometimes it's really hard to believe that only about a year ago, retailers were jumping the Apple ship like rats with little orange lifevests. Remember how ugly things got? Places like Sears and Circuit City sold Macs back then-- or rather, they failed to sell Macs. Take Apple's all-time-low public opinion level and combine it with store employees who wouldn't know a Mac if it bit them in the collective behind, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Or, more accurately, a recipe for a scenario in which one lonely Performa (oops-- we mean Power Mac) 6500 sits neglected and nonfunctional amid a sea of Wintels, as salespeople actively dissuade interested customers from buying anything from Apple who "just went out of business." Yeesh.
So isn't it satisfying to know that some of those retailers, who didn't blink an eye when Apple dropped them from the reseller list a year ago, are now begging to get back into the Mac game? More specifically, the iMac game: Apple's hit consumer product reportedly has retailers lining up in Cupertino to get a piece of the action. It was sweet enough to see Best Buy, who was one of the first to bail, re-enter the Mac fold, but according to a TechWeb article, they may just be the first of many. Spurred by the iMac's phenomenal sales and Apple's ability to keep them on store shelves, Apple is "getting an awful lot of requests" from hopeful chains. They're "turning down some and putting others on hold," presumably to keep things stable during this strategically crucial holiday rush-- but we're betting you'll see more stores selling iMacs next year.
Anyway, the next time you're steamed about the ineptitude of the guy at the local CompUSA or Best Buy, remember-- it's okay to be peeved. Heck, it's even healthy; we don't want to fall into complacency and take Mac ignorance for granted in stores selling Apple equipment. But at the same time, remember how bad things used to be, and keep in mind that there's always room for improvement. Now that retailers are asking Apple to let them sell iMacs, maybe they'll actually make some effort to sell the things right.
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SceneLink (1165)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 11/21/98 episode: November 21, 1998: The iMac's stellar success has retailers drooling with the possibilities, and Apple's able to pick and choose whom to enlist. Meanwhile, Microsoft announces that future versions of Internet Explorer for the Mac and Unix will ship without Java, and "someone" is taking a public opinion survey about Microsoft's popularity in the ongoing "Redmond Justice" fracas...
Other scenes from that episode: 1166: Caffeine-Free Mac IE (11/21/98) As with any big company, sometimes at Microsoft it seems like the right hand hasn't a clue what the left hand is doing. Case in point: the confusion emerging after last week's preliminary injunction, handed down by Judge Whyte and ordering that Microsoft alter its Java-enabled products in order to pass a Sun compatibility test... 1167: 5- Strongly Disagree (11/21/98) Looks like Microsoft's doing a little market research these days, which doesn't sound like a very unusual thing for a software company to be doing, right? Except that the Great Software Mill of the Pacific Northwest isn't asking customers what they think about their products; they're asking for opinions on "Redmond Justice" and the antitrust issues raised by America's favorite courtroom drama...
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