|
Fire At Will! (1/6/99)
|
 
|
| | |
If you'd have asked us yesterday, we would have told you that now is absolutely, positively, no-questions-asked the best possible time to buy an iMac. After all, the processor speed's been bumped up slightly, the disk capacity's been expanded by 50%, and the price has dropped $100. And on top of all that, you can choose between five fruit flavors. What could possibly be better?
A price war, that's what. A price war of epic proportions. See, according to Computer Reseller News, Apple has just lifted the Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) restriction on the "classic" iMac. For those of you just tuning in, MAP is the lowest price at which a reseller is allowed to sell a given Apple product. The MAP for the iMac, until last week, was $1299. Resellers who advertised the iMac for less than that (as in the case of Best Buy's recent panicked iMac fire sale at $999 and then $1099) were subject to Apple's MAP-violation penalties, which, as far as we can make out, include the withholding of "co-op" advertising funds (money given to resellers by Apple to use for advertising Apple's products) and a severe frowny face. Losing the co-op funds is tough, but man, that frowny face is murder; after all, Best Buy soon stepped back into line with their iMac pricing once Apple cast its frown in their general direction. So most resellers play ball and stick to Apple's MAP.
Now, MAP for the new "Life Savers" iMacs is $1199, and the official Apple price for the revision B iMacs has dropped to $1049. But now that MAP restrictions have been lifted, resellers are free to sell the revision B systems for whatever price they feel like. It's a smart way for Apple to clear the channel of "classic" iMacs to make room for the new systems-- and it means that within days we bet there will be several resellers dropping prices like mad in order to squeeze as many rev. B's out the door as possible. If you don't mind Bondi Blue, you should be able to pick up a rev. B iMac for a song. Just don't wait too long, or else everyone will be out of stock and you'll be out of luck.
| |
| |
 |
SceneLink (1250)
|  |
 |
|
And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
| | | |
|
| |
|
 | | The above scene was taken from the 1/6/99 episode: January 6, 1999: Brace yourself, because it looks like an iMac price war is looming on the horizon. Meanwhile, the new iMacs underwent a little surgery before hitting the runway, and the P1's design is still way up in the air...
Other scenes from that episode: 1251: Mezz Has Left the Building (1/6/99) Let's recap: the new iMacs cost $100 less, have a slightly faster processor, a bigger hard disk, and come in five colors. Sounds like a solid upgrade, right? Except that what Apple's not shouting from the rooftops is that the "iMac 266" is actually missing a couple of things found in the "classic" iMacs... 1252: Have It Your Way (1/6/99) Sometimes it's easy to forget just how much a product can change during its development cycle. Take a look at Yosemite, for instance, and note the number of features that differ from earlier prototypes described on the web: it's iMac-colored instead of dark blue, it has no AGP slot, it has no IrDA port, there's no media bay that allows the swapping of modules with PowerBooks, etc...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
|
|
