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The Exodus Continues (1/30/98)
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A surprising number of AtAT viewers contacted us to say that our grouping of Computer City stores with the notoriously Mac-indifferent Best Buy chain was unfair; these viewers report that Computer City actually does a pretty good job displaying and selling Apple computers. To that we can only respond that there must be individual store managers working to support Apple (and good for them). Unfortunately the point is moot, anyway: Computer City is, in fact, the second retailer to fall from the tree in Apple's take-no-prisoners "re-evaluation" of its retail presence. Computer Retail Week has the story.
Apparently all Computer City store managers were contacted by headquarters and told to ship all boxed Macs back to home base, where we assume they will be returned to Apple's distributors for sale elsewhere, such as at CompUSA, whose recent Apple salon store initiative has been such a success. Apple's requiring far more support, dedication, and commitment from its retailers, and those who refuse to comply are dropped. (Given that their nonexistent efforts usually sold so few Macs anyway, these retailers are likely just as happy to leave the Mac space.)
Next on the chopping block? Sears and Circuit City, if reports are accurate. Can Apple's spin doctors get the word out that it's the dumper and not the dumpee? Or will this exodus from the unfriendly retail chains just bolster the common public opinion that Apple's on its last legs? Stay tuned...
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 1/30/98 episode: January 30, 1998: Best Buy's Mac-eviscerated corpse is still warm as Computer City falls, its remaining Macs shipped back from whence they came. Self-induced Mac-ectomies? Or is that Apple over there in the shadows with a pair of hedge-clippers? Meanwhile, Steve Jobs readies another doozy of an announcement: is an Oracle merger in the cards? And the Microsoft-DoJ conflict lurches slowly forward...
Other scenes from that episode: 406: "The Announcement" (1/30/98) Buckle up tight, because there's another Steve Jobs public announcement scheduled for next week. Details are very hush-hush right now, and in fact even the date of the event is questionable; most reports have it down for Monday, while Mac OS Rumors states that it may actually be on Tuesday or later instead. As for the topic of this "State of the Apple" address, rumors differ wildly... 407: Still Appealing... (1/30/98) And in this episode of "Redmond Justice," Microsoft files a 51-page brief appealing the harsh treatment of Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who, they claim, overstepped his authority when he issued a preliminary injunction requiring the software company to stop forcing its systems vendors to ship Internet Explorer with every Windows 95 system...
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