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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.
It's okay if it was a mistake and they were forced to take it down.
Now it's time for everybody to make friends with a college student to get the Apple-Student-$50 discount.
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.
"Customer response exceeded our wildest expectations so we're not continuing the rebate at this time," Ling Hong, an Amazon.com spokesperson told MacMinute. "But obviously all the pre-orders that we received during the time that the rebate offer was posted on our site will be honored." Hong said all orders placed up until 19:00 PT yesterday will be eligible.
Mine randomly goes away at times and then comes back. No big deal. Sometimes they don't have extra-special offers for you. Half the time when they do, at least one is sold out by the time you get to it. I doubt they discontinued the program--it's a great way to unload the last few units of discontinued items.
meh... every gold box offer I ever got was for hardware... I don't need no stinking hardware!
I think maybe it was a mistake; the rebate form I saw originally never had Mac OS X 10.2 on it.
Hey puge! Look again. I have a backup of the rebateform here.
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
apple also provide free bug fixes.
10.1.1
10.1.2
10.1.3
10.1.4
10.1.5
all free
plus software update... all free
10.2 you pay cos there's new features.
microsoft have windowsupdate same as software update. that's it. all versions between updates are chargeable.
arguably service packs are free versions, but 95 - 98 - 98 second edition - ME - XP... all cost money.
and more than OS-X upgrades too..
BeOS also charged. they only released a Personal Edition of BeOS when they got to version 5 to try and promote usage..
guess what? they went under..
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.
The aquafiles rebate is for Amazon. Nice try tho. :)
Triv
i'm assuming that you mean hammers and tools and stuff. i kept getting this $130 rice cooker, it was pretty funny b/c they are like $35 in almost any store. i got the occaisional mp3 player, i almost bought 2 of them. the guy who works across from me has been getting good DVD's for cheap (memento - $10). lucky bastard. i think its because he has some AMZN stock or something.
THERE IS NO DATA. THERE IS O
they said they will honor orders that were already completed.... too bad mine was/is sitting in my cart. i figured there was no hurry to pre-order and was trying to figure out what DVDs i should buy. i figured i easily went over the free shipping price, so i might as well buy a few books and DVDs that are not always in local stores. oops.
from how they are acting and that one copy of the wonky rebate form i wonder if it was an error. i can see a huge discount coming on remaining copies of 10.1.3, but who the hell would want to buy it? it's not like 9.2 where some machines won't run OS X. if your machine runs OS X then i can't see why it won't run 10.2 even better (faster too).
Amazon has acknowledged errors in the past too. they honor the completed orders, but from then on scrap the deal.
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.
Last I heard under the Consumer Protection Acts of virtually all states there was no means of "pulling an announced rebate."
:)
Amazon's own terms of agreement indicate a rebate is valid as long as it's posted.
Check the link provided. It's still "posted."
They still running the same scam for a number of other products. The coupon still reads the same.
How are they going to "pull the rebate."
They aren't if anyone's in the mood to try them. I am. I ordered another box of Jaguar the day after the rebate "was pulled."
Amazon should know better having had there tit in similar ringers in the past (if you'll pardon the expression).
Sign up for the Apple Developer Connection mailing. You'll get OS 10.2 plus a year's worth of developer tools, SDKs, and updates.
How is charging about half what microsoft charges for an update, and giving you a free one for every one you have to buy (apple only charges every other update) "criminal"? And worse than microsoft?
Hey, we remember getting system 4 and 5 and 6 for free, but Apple has a different business model now.
Think of it this way-- you're really paying for the iApps but getting the OS for free.
Ok?
I really don't see how buying an os upgrade every other year is such a big deal. And it costs %60 of what you'd be paying to microsoft (Really even less when you factor in all the hassle and add-on packs MS sells.)
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
$200? Why did you pull that number out of your ass?
You think we don't ALL know that Jaguar is only $129, and widely going to be discounted?
Sheesh.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Funny, I have an 18 month old laptop that Quartz Extreme supports. how is that?
Sheesh.
And you want SCSI? Ok, fine, its supported under OS X natively. My 9500 works just fine (running OS X)
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
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
Actually if they had called it 10.5 most Apple users would have been happier to pay for it. Maybe now there is a more consevative way of numbering things such that point releases will always be something you pay for and the updates to those (10.2.1) will be free. In the past versions such as 7.1, 7.2 were free while 7.5 was not.
Lasers Controlled Games!
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
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail /-/software/B00006F7S2/rebates/02/002-1732681-4549 637
As of five minutes ago...
This link DOES show a rebate coupon, the coupon DOES list "Mac OS X 10.2: Jaguar," and the coupon DOES say it is good for purchases made between 7/29/02 and 09/03/02.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Sorry, that URL got mangled... either remove two internal spaces from it, or try this
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I agree. Now should someone who paid full price for 10.0 - 10.1.5 have to pay full price for 10.2?
Lasers Controlled Games!
Has anyone contacted Amazon about this? What sort of reply have you gotten from them?
If I can't get the $50 rebate, I'll cancel my order.
The middle mind speaks!
meh... I have AMZN stock too... I want DVD and MP3 player offers! I'm tired of $2000 circular saws and $250 screwdrivers that I don't want, can't afford, and don't need.
I think this is an issue with two very distinct sides. Apple, on the one hand, desperately needs and wants to keep its customers happy. Practically everything they've done for the past five years has been in an effort keep existing customers happy, or to make new customers. They don't have the luxury of being able gouge anybody.
.mac and OS 10.2. Do you think they're doing this out of greed or spite? I doubt it. They're doing it to keep their net margin steady. They're doing it to stay healthy as a company.
But on the other hand, Apple has to make money. Second only to making money at all is the issue of maintaining margin. If Apple's net margin last quarter was 30% and this quarter it's 20%, Apple's stock will lose value even if their gross revenues increase. In other words, in order to stay healthy as a company, Apple needs to keep their revenues roughly in balance with their expenses.
Apple gave 10.1 away for free to any customer who could or would walk into an Apple store and pick up a CD. That was an amazing show of good will. It may have also cost Apple a fortune. I don't know, but I'm guessing it wasn't cheap.
Now they need people to pay for things they were expecting to get for free, like
Right now, if I were (say) Sun, I'd be thinking seriously about buying Apple. I have no idea if Sun has that kind of money, but I'm just saying I'd be thinking about it. Sun's server business is top-notch, but their desktop business is waning. Apple's desktop business kicks ass, and it's getting stronger every day. Apple's potential earnings for the next few years are a lot more than the company is currently worth on paper.
If Apple had a bad quarter or two, their stock price would slip and the sharks would start tasting blood in the water.
So they're keeping their gross margins high-- or trying to, anyway-- at the cost of some customer satisfaction. Apple has repeatedly been assessed in the market as having brand loyalty out the ears, so I'd imagine that few customers, if any, are going to switch to Dell or whatever just because Apple's charging $129 for Jaguar.
Net result: Apple's sales stay pretty much constant, every Mac owner from here to Tupelo, Mississippi buys a retail copy of Jaguar, and Apple keeps their net margins up thanks to the extra revenue. Apple's stock stays strong, and they get to keep doing what they're doing.
I'm no business or financial whiz; I may have some or all of my facts wrong. But if you assume that I'm at least mostly right, in the broad sense, then Apple's recent actions make all the sense in the world.
(Oh, speaking of sense, the whole "odd-number this, even-number that" thing is a dumb idea. Not quite as dumb as the idea that Linux 2.2 and 2.4 is okay to use but Linux 2.3 and 2.5 isn't, but that's a whole other ball of wax.)
Though there was a widely known hack, weren't the 10.1 CDs meant to only function as upgrades? So you had to have purchased OS X for those "free" CDs to be useful.
I agree that everybody is starved for cash right now. That is one reason why I don't see Sun buying Apple. Can you imagine Steve giving up control again? I actually hear a lot of rumours about IBM buying Sun, but never from official sources.
Anyhow what percentage of Mac owners run Mac OS X. I recently saw that it was 20% and that the number was lower than Apple had hoped it would be. They need to keep that 20% happy for now so that they can evangelize the remaining 80%. If the 20% love OS X but are annoyed by the $129 price that will come through. If they were given a $40 discount as a show of appreciation for being forerunners they might be even more enthusiastic about the product.
I do agree that everybody wants to keep their numbers up. I also remember that Apple has billions in the bank. They can take a bad quarter or two.
What they really need to drive revenue is to come out with systems that are faster. They have really been stalled chip-wise. The "MHz Myth" campaign won't do much in a few months when Intel has a 3GHz P4 out. If Motorola isn't doing the job then maybe it is time for them to go with IBM.
The iMac is a great product for the home user, but all the companies buying Macs would love to see some more horsepower. As soon as all the apps people need are running on OS X companies are going to look at upgrading their workstations and wonder why Apple has stalled so badly speed wise. This is going to be a real opportunity for revenue that might be missed.
Lasers Controlled Games!
I do agree that everybody wants to keep their numbers up. I also remember that Apple has billions in the bank. They can take a bad quarter or two.
;-) I mean no disrespect. I'm just sarcastically making the point that a couple of bad quarters would be bad for Apple in more and bigger ways than just affecting their cash-on-hand.
Did you miss the part of my post where I talked about net margin versus gross revenue?
On the performance issue, I work with media production companies and media service providers. Post houses, service bureaus, studios, that kind of thing. They're very serious and very loyal Mac users, all. And you know what? They're not complaining about the speed of the workstations Apple is selling. They could, and you'd expect that they would in a heartbeat, but they're simply not. Instead, they want more and better OS X versions of their applications. Adobe has done well with Photoshop and After Effects for OS X, but they're not good enough yet. There are still too many inefficiencies and quirks. Of course, some of these are out of the vendors' hands; Apple has to fix them in the Carbon libraries directly. I wonder how much Jaguar has addressed these things?
My point is that Apple's doing the right thing. They're letting the hardware line grow gradually, so customers get a decent depreciation time on their investment. The Mac you buy today loses half its value in about twelve months. If Apple were to accelerate the pace of new system development, that time would dwindle to six months or even less. In PC-land, on the other hand, you're looking at about a 4 month cycle. That makes it really hard to justify going out and spending $4,000 on a new workstation, given that it's going to lose $2,000 in value before the leaves start to turn.
Buying a Mac is easier to justify, because I know (unless I buy right before a product cycle, say now) that the workstation I buy today will hold its value for 8 to 12 months, easy. This is a good thing, both for Apple and for customers.
Apple's doing it right. Accelerate development on the OS, and keep development of the hardware at a pace fast enough to satisfy actual customer demand, but no faster.
I really doubt that they are keeping hardware slow on purpose. What evidence is there of that? If you think that they are not releasing the fastest hardware they can while maintaining their pricepoints. I agree that Macs depreciate more slowly than PCs, but that is due to a number of factors other than the fact the they aren't coming out with new hardware as quickly as might be expected.
Every company is looking for performance breakthroughs, even if their current customers are happy with current performance. Obviously if you only have 5% market share there are some people out there that would buy your product if it had better performance.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Agreed. I have a Dual 450 from fall 2000 (21 months?) and I'd say it's still worth the money.
;-) It's nowhere near the purchase price, I'm sure, but after all your machine is nearly two years old. Getting 1/3 of the price you paid for it after two years would be pretty good, I think.
I've been in the market for just such a machine. I consider my Mac to be I/O bound, not CPU bound, but I really like the added interactivity you get from having that second CPU in there. I wish Apple would sell a new low-end dual-CPU system, say a dual 800 MHz or something, instead of just restricting the dual-CPU configuration to the fastest and most expensive CPUs.
That said, I'd offer you $700 for your G4 right now.
I guess the difference is, with MS I'm still holding on to W2k because XP frightens me, but with Apple I actually want Jaguar. ;)
Ah, but does this mean no more bug fixes for the 10.1.x series?
I've been running it a couple days and Jaguar is quite a delight.
I don't think people realize how much has changed- the new finder looks the same, but from the pointer and beachball replacements, to every button in the UI, Aqua is different... generally its quite a wonderful OS.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23