|
Compaq: No Prisoners (2/1/98)
|
 
|
| | |
And speaking of Compaq, the Wintel juggernaut just keeps on jugging. It's been a mighty busy couple of weeks for the manufacturing giant; first they bought out Digital for almost $10 billion, the highest-priced tech buyout in history, in order to gain Digital's inroads into corporate sales. Then they unseated IBM as the exclusive computer brand to be sold by Radio Shack, which means at least from now on we'll see something other than those omnipresent Aptiva's whenever we stop in for batteries or a cable.
Now, most folks would agree that those are pretty serious accomplishments. But in a hat trick of business coups, Compaq's done it again: they've just replaced Apple as the official computer of Canon Sales, a large Japanese retail chain. Just as Radio Shacks will now only sell Compaq's, so will Canon stores. Why did Canon make the switch? According to Webintosh, it's partly because Apple's sales have been falling-- from 60% to under 50% of Canon's sales.
So if you happened to be looking for traits that Apple and IBM have in common, here's one: they both just got their corporate butts kicked by Compaq. Ouch.
| |
| |
 |
SceneLink (413)
|  |
 |
|
And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
| | | |
|
| |
|
 | | The above scene was taken from the 2/1/98 episode: February 1, 1998: Independent reports threaten to break the scandal of "CompUSAGate" any day now; will Steve's announcements this week set minds at rest? Meanwhile, though CompUSA builds its salon stores, it still slights Apple in the press; and Compaq, not satisfied with swallowing Digital whole and kicking IBM out of Radio Shack, deals Apple a vicious blow in Japan as an encore...
Other scenes from that episode: 411: The Truth Is Out There (2/1/98) Remember yesterday's conspiracy theory, in which we surmised that the CompUSA salon-store deal was more than a little connected to this recent exodus of other national retailers from the Mac market? Well, AtAT isn't the only show on the air who is paranoid brave enough to tell what's really going on behind closed doors: O'Grady's PowerPage, Powerbook site extraordinaire, reports that in addition to Best Buy and Computer City, Circuit City and Sears are also packing up their Macs and calling it a day... 412: Death By Underexposure (2/1/98) And yet, being the sole national retail seller of Macs doesn't seem to have had any effect on CompUSA's advertising biases. As faithful viewer Arthur Wagner points out, the CompUSA color insert in today's Sunday newspapers (at least here in Boston, and in the paper wherever Artie lives) is the equivalent of the CompUSA of old...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
|
|
