While the rest of the computer manufacturing industry digs in its heels for a slow sales summer, Apple is gearing up for its biggest product launch ever. With exactly one month remaining until the announced launch date of the iMac, it sounds as if the magic August 15th date is still a go. A Newsbytes article claims that, according to Apple sources, everything remains on schedule, and iMacs should hit the channel in time for part of the back-to-school buying blitz and early enough to capture significant mind share before the holiday frenzy.

One associate reports having seen and played with a demo model already on display in a ComputerTown in Salem, New Hampshire (our prior assertion that it was in Nashua was the result of "operator headspace timing error"), which does bode well for an on-time rollout, though a reseller contact claims that VARs still have not received the SKU numbers from Apple that would let them order the merchandise. (Presumably CompUSA has a special arrangement, and thus was able to pre-order 100,000 systems several weeks ago.) With only a month left before launch, we certainly hope Apple has a seriously oversaturated advertising blitz waiting in the wings; Apple can't rely solely on media stories and word of mouth (though handing an iMac brochure to minutiae-goddess Katie's day-job boss has resulted in a preorder for that non-computer-using person-- installed base market share, here we come!).

We're not particularly surprised to hear that Apple will make the August 15th launch date, but we're still relieved to hear things haven't slipped. An iMac availability problem on the scale of the "Great PowerBook G3 Drought of '98" (you'll be telling your grandkids about that one, trust us) would be an unmitigated disaster for Apple, who has seemingly bet the whole future of the company on the funky blue forty-pound gumdrops. Right now it sounds like in four and a half weeks, tens of thousands of iMacs will flood the channel and style-conscious computer buyers the world over will rejoice in the abundance. Of course, a lot can go wrong in four and a half weeks, and we won't be fully unclenched until we see iMac boxes on the shelves at the local CompUSA. Scratch that-- we won't really be comfortable until we see them flying off the shelves at CompUSA.