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Amazon Quietly Yanks Discount for Mac OS X 10.2

WCityMike writes "Amazon has quietly revoked the $50 rebate for Mac OS X 10.2 it was supposedly offering through September 3. The rebate form was updated to reflect this a few hours later. While theories as to why abound (including supposed involvement from Apple), some have reasonably pointed out that Amazon may not have expected as voluminous a response as they got, making the rebate a potentially major cash loss had it continued at that volume. People who already placed their orders should probably contact Amazon, while the rest of us can simply continue hoping Apple will offer its own 'rebate'." I think maybe it was a mistake; the rebate form I saw originally never had Mac OS X 10.2 on it.

7 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Hint Apple... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you want greater adoption CHARGE LESS! This should also be patently obvious to Microsoft andf their office X suite. I know it's a good deal 150 improvements. BUT if apple is really serious about greater influence they will bite the bullet and charge less then they originally proposed. Jaguar by itself will convince wintel users to switch. Hell, I'd be giving this away on the condition that you show it off to three of your friends.

  2. Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system. by ceejayoz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apple's main mistake was calling it OS 10.2 - they should have learned from MS and called it OS 11, then no one would have complained.

  3. Re:the rebate was there by Sentry21 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Basically what that quote means is 'we thought we'd try a stupid publicity stunt to get more people to come to our website and look around, but then we decided that maybe we shouldn't lose our shirts'.

    Rule number one of marketing: let the suppliers do the rebates, unless you have a ton of stock that you NEED to get rid of, but don't want to just mark down. The only reason to ever sell for less than you buy at is amortization, depreciation, or cutting your losses. Selling pre-orders at less than cost is the mentality behind most dot-com businesses - bleed red ink, but make up for it in added services.

    Dumb dumb.

    --Dan

  4. Apple has spoiled the diehard Mac crowd... by MalleusEBHC · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and somewhat shot itself in the foot by continuously spoiling the Mac faithful for years. Mac users have gotten great free products (iTunes, iTools, etc.) that can be and are flaunted in the faces of Windows users. But after so much of this, Apple has created a situation where many of the diehard Mac users no longer realize that Apple is a company that is trying to make a profit, just like other companies out there such as *gasp* Microsoft. That means that when they release new products, especially quality ones such as Jaguar, they will most likely charge for them. If they offer something sweet for free like iPhoto, the Mac community should be happy but not unfairly raise expectations for more free products. If it really bothers people to be paying for a point release (which as many have pointed out would be a whole new OS by Redmond's standards), think of it as buying a suite of new applications and features: iChat, Sherlock 3, Quartz Extreme, etc.

    1. Re:Apple has spoiled the diehard Mac crowd... by thaigan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      iChat is an Apple GUI on AOL Instant Messenger...Can't be worth more than $10 - $20 bucks
      Sherlock 3 is Apple's absorption of the most excellent Watson...$30(includes lifetime updates)
      Quartz Extreme...I'd hardly call this an application from the user standpoint. This is Apple making up for opting for stability over performance in the pre-10.2 releases. This is a bug fix; I'm very happy for it, but it's still a bug fix.

      It's completely appropriate to charge 130 bucks for this for anyone that didn't pay for the 10.1 release. I just spent $1999 on a new iMac 7 weeks ago. I called Apple to ask them what good my Software Coupons are and they told me they are there to remind me to upgrade now and then. Now I fondly remember when those coupons were there to get you the next release of the OS. So now, just two months after dropping a bundle, I have to shell out $130 just to keep up. There should be a reasonable upgrade price for owners of 10.1.

      --

      42
  5. Re:Apple Pudge Fackers by BitGeek · · Score: 4, Insightful



    Funny, I'd love to hang out with a bunch of gay apple users. Most of the gay people I know use macs-- they are far too picky about things being stupidly done and so they go for superiority.

    what's the big deal? You think anyone is going to feel bad because you said apple users are gay? Sheesh.... it only tells us that you're insecure about the size of your weenie.

    Who cares who's gay and who isn't... anyone worthy posting on slashdot doesn't.

    --
    Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257
  6. Re:Why don't you just get a REAL operating system. by ellem · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You idiot.

    10.1.1..5 were fixes.
    And what you think 10.2 is a whole new OS?

    No, you dimwit! It is another fix.

    I'll give them 20USD but that's all it is worth.

    --
    This .sig is fake but accurate.