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A Christmas Miracle (12/17/98)
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It may not rank right up there with George Bailey being handed bushels of cash from concerned friends and family, but it could be considered a Christmas Miracle in many circles: a $300 price drop on what we could classify as the "Furbie" of the consumer computer market (if, say, Furbies were still amazingly popular without being ugly and annoying). That's right; according to MacNN, iMacs are selling for $999 in at least some Best Buy stores around the country. If you were waiting for the fabled iMac sub-$1000 price drop, you may want to check out your local Best Buy outlet to see what's up.
As far as we can tell, this isn't an indication of an Apple-sanctioned, market-wide price drop on the iMac, but rather a case of retail competition in action. By most reports, Best Buy has been having the living stuffing kicked out of them by rival iMac-seller CompUSA ever since Best Buy took the late plunge back into the Mac business last month. Heck, on Best Buy's inaugural iMac-selling weekend, CompUSA bundled in a free scanner and printer and stole their thunder. Ever since, we've been hearing that the rate of iMac sales from Best Buy is minuscule compared to CompUSA's numbers. So apparently now that they've been out-bundled and out-saleshelped by CompUSA, Best Buy is competing in the arena they handle best: price. And "iMac for $999!" may sound a lot better from a marketing standpoint than "iMac for $1299 with free scanner and printer!" even though the second offer may be the better deal.
Now, the reports don't specify that the $999 iMacs are new-in-box and factory sealed, so they might be open-box customer returns. We suppose they could even be rev. A models, though we highly doubt that-- Best Buy didn't leap into the iMac fray until after the rev. B's started shipping, so we would be surprised to hear that even a single rev. A machine had ever set cute translucent flip-down foot inside a Best Buy store. And this also all assumes that the reports of $999 iMacs are even true in the first place, though we certainly see no particular reason to doubt them. But for a Christmas Miracle to occur, you have to believe...
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SceneLink (1224)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 12/17/98 episode: December 17, 1998: For those of you who were praying for a Christmas miracle, it may have come to pass; take a look at your local Best Buy to check. Meanwhile, Mac users might gain "modern" operating system features earlier than expected, and Judge Jackson indicates that the outcome of "Redmond Justice" is far from certain...
Other scenes from that episode: 1225: Uphill Both Ways (12/17/98) "In my day, we didn't have all this 'pre-emptive multitasking' and 'symmetric multiprocessing' hoo-haa. When you wanted to run more than one application, your background tasks could slow to a crawl, or stop altogether-- and we liked it... 1226: Tables Turning (12/17/98) Let's face it: when it comes to "Redmond Justice," Microsoft is getting hammered. The government has trotted out witness after witness, each of whom testified that Microsoft had engaged in business activities that were, at best, "shaky" from an antitrust standpoint...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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