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Apple Re-Reverses G4 Order Cancellations
uncleFester writes "ZDNN appears to be reporting that Apple appears to be reversing its decision to reinstate all cancelled G4 orders, except for "a few orders" (probably machines in the production pipeline). From this latest switch, anyone wanting a G4 is going to have a hard time even knowing if they have one on order, let alone physically receiving the box."
Before anyone gets out of shape, take a visit to the usual Mac web sites:
http://www.macnn.com
http://www.macopinion.com
http://www.macweek.com
http://www.maccentral.com
http://www.macosrumors.com
You'll notice that none of them seem to have any sort of agreement on what the hell is going on. Remember people, it's not wise to base your judgements on something coming from ZDNet - their style of reporting was most likely to rely on one or maybe two of the above sites and cite them as 'anonymous sources'.
The fact is, nobody really knows what the hell is going on. Everything seems to point to the fact that everyone is getting their G4s at the original price except for some people who ordered early via resellers.
Now, if Apple really is going back and forth on this, well, I don't know what to say - they may have started dipping into the 'special' Kool Aid. On the other hand, this could simply be a case of one side of Apple not knowing what the hell the other side is doing (does anyone know if they use Outlook/Exchange over there?). Admittedly Apple has an odd enough history to make something like this halfway plausible, but remember who you are checking on for facts before you go apeshit...
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
You can put the blame on Motorola for the G4-500 fiasco.
But Apple is solely to blame for 2 actions, which will anger customers far more than not having the 500Mhz processor.
1) Cancelling pre-orders
2) Downgrading processors without reducing the prices
The rationale for #1 is directly connected to #2. In order to protect their profit margin, pre-orders must be cancelled in order to make people order into the 3 price tiers.
The pathetic excuse of DRAM prices is ridiculous. Apple carries a 30-35% margin on their G4 line [26& overall, but G4 is higher margin than iMac]. That means ~$750 profit on a $2500 system. They can afford to eat the DRAM price rise. The quarterly profit will be severely hampered, but they wouldn't expose themselves to lawsuits and bad PR.
It sounds like the financial guys are in charge, while customer service is at the bottom of the pile. Think Different. The stock price is more important than your customers.
This scenario isn't really news. They've already done this with Windows NT 4.0, and will most likely do this with NT 5.0 as well. So if ZD reported that MS was going to stick it to the little guys because they could I sure wouldn't be surprised.
So you're a computer company dependent on another company for your chips. Fairly normal. Your chip supplier tells you to expect X number of chips and A, B, and C speeds. You plan your configurations, price points, and advertising around these numbers. Then several weeks after you've announced your spiffy new computers, your chip supplier calls you up and says "Oops, we goofed, we won't be able to give you as many chips as we thought and we won't have any running at A Mhz. Sorry!" What are you, as a computer manufacturer, going to do? If Apple had changed processor speeds and price points, their low-end pro system would cost less than an iMac, and they'd be losing tons of revenue because they wouldn't be selling anything at their highest price point. And the reason that they're only honoring a few orders is that they just don't have enough chips to fill all the preorders.
Apple is between a rock and a hard place: if they adjusted their price points to make their customers happy they'd see their profits and stock price drop and their shareholders would be unhappy. So they maintained their price points and a lot of customers are unhappy. If there's anyone to blame here it's Motorola for not meeting demand for the chips. Call me cynical, but I have a feeling that if this was anyone but Apple people would be acting a lot more reasonably.
Another Apple story is posted to SlashDot and another series of pro and con messages are posted. I am glad to see no "They are not GPLed so they suck" messages (although they may have been moderated down).
One comment rally struck me. It seems to be on a lot of people's lips when an "Apple screwed up again" news story comes out (even like this one, without a shred of evidence backing it) - "It seems that Apple, once again, has begun another slow death."
What? Is that like "multiple successful suicide"? For years people have been forecasting the end of Apple. "Apple is dying. Apple cannot survive this time."
Guess what- Apple is still here. No, their market share never seems to go anywhere. They do good (PowerPCs, switching over to the PCI architecture, and so on) and they do bad (flamable PowerBooks, cancelling clones). And yet they are just as strong as ever. Never growing stronger and, at the same time, never growing weaker.
Why is that? Well, with everyone's favorite monopoly, Microsoft, around, Apple can only tread water. It has a good product (wheter you choose to admit it or not, MacOS is a decent evironment. There are better out there, but not a whole lot), but not good enough to take MS down (can anyone, single-handedly?).
Apple does have a good customer base, and good customer loyalty. Apple has been smart enough to know that interoperability is key. Starting many years ago, all shipping Macs are capable of reading PC disks (floppy and otherwise). TCP/IP became an imporant form of networking that Apple soon integrated (MacOS 9 includes AppleScripting over TCP/IP!). These facts keep it afloat, despite PR screwups.
So where does that leave Apple? Not able to break the 10-15% marketshare because of MS, but with a strong enough customer base that it is not going to fail. I would not call Apple a "niche" company, since there is not set "niche" that is customers fall into. Rather, Apple is a by-product of the current monopolistic state we find ourselves in with dektop PCs.
Perhaps Linux-followers have a lot to learn from Apple.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
as some huge screw-up or the end of Apple? Apple makes just a little more than 500mhz G4 computers. This problem only really affects the people who are wanting to buy the 500mhz G4 which is about 20% of all the people buying the G4 line. Because of their price the G4 400 counts for a much larger percentage of G4 sales then the 450 and 500 combined. This will not sink Apple in any way. You can also extrapolate the people buying the 450 and 500 are probably the niche market-graphic designers, digital video/audio authoring, publication-which probably have damn fast G3's already and just wanted the next step up to up their productivity a few hours. For Windows users you ought to be rooting Apple on, without them USB would be Intel's wet dream that never really caught on. The iMac is what really started the USB wildfire going, I bought a system in '97 that had USB ports, no one really gave a sh*t. Then the iMac and it's USB toys came out and everyone was touting their "new" USB ports on systems. Linux/unix users should be thankful that Apple is there to keep people pondering Windows alternatives, Linux would have never become the media frenzy it is now had there not been Mac geeks making a name for the non-M$ world before most of us ever heard of Linux.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Why does Slashdot let this drivel through the gate? And better yet, why do so many Slashdot readers believe it? Slashdot is supposed to be about not swallowing things based on face value. Apple has issued ONE, SINGULAR, UNO press release on this matter, entitled "Apple Reconfigures Power Mac G4 Processor Speeds to Match Chip Availability." Whatever ZDNet and MacWeek said is their problem. Let's review Slashdot's stories on this over the past several days:
Wednesday: According to MacInTouch, Apple just reduced the processing speed of G4s by 50Mhz, without a price reduction or change in configuration, and cancelled all outstanding orders.
Thursday: According to MacInTouch "Apple has reversed the cancellation of existing Power Mac G4 orders, according to impeccable sources, and is calling back customers to explain
Sunday: "ZDNN appears to be reporting that Apple appears to be reversing its decision to reinstate all cancelled G4 orders, except for "a few orders"
So, for some odd reason, the first two days are pointed at MacInTouch, but the last one is pointed at ZDNet. If anyone had actually looked at MacInTouch today, they would realize that MacInTouch has (correct) information that directly contradict's MacWeek's:
As we reported first on Oct. 14, Apple reversed its decision to cancel outstanding Apple Store orders for Power Mac G4 computers and to force customers to re-order. [...] (Sources say that a contradictory report, citing Apple spokesperson Rhona Hamilton, has since been retracted.)
MacNN.com (the most reputable of the sites, IMNSHO), confirms this:
Our understanding is that all Apple Store orders before the "reconfiguration announcement" will be honored, as part of Apple's reversal on its G4 Cancellation policy. [...] (Muddying the issue is a MacWEEK report that claims Apple will only be reversing a limited number of Apple Store orders.)
If Slashdot (or readers) cannot responsibly research and report on Apple, it should cease doing so.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Every impression of Steve Jobless I've seen is that he's a madman. He probably got to work on the morning of the chip warnings, yelled and screamed "YOU GUYS ARE NOT BEING PAID TO BE A BUNCH OF CLOWNS!!!!! I NEED ARTISTS!!!!!!" at his employees for the chips being defective and to ordered ramped up production of defective 500Mhz computers to stop a PR disaster.
Steve yelled as loud as he could at Motorala engineers "ARE YOU VIRGINS!!?!" to push the defective chips out while Motorola engineers probably winced that morning and wondered what the idiot was doing. Then Apple started getting complaints from customers.
At 3am fielding a sea of customer complaints Steve's engineers probably started yelling at him "I'M SO SICK AND TIRED OF YOUR ABUSE ON THIS PROJECT!!!!" for being such a madman. Steve finally exploded and yelled "ALL RIGHT! These chips don't work. Stop production!!!!" Definitely a guy you don't want to work for.
- A.P.
--
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Is it me or wouldn't it be a good thing to simply wait for a formal Apple announcement as to their decision.
/. most of the post I've read in this post would not have been made. There's no reason to give more credibility to ZDNet because they're talking about Apple and citing an unnamed source then if they had been talking about the latest Kernel upgrade and quoting also an unnamed source.
Moreover, if a message on ZDNet had been posted about anything of usual interest to
Anyways, www.macintouch.com seems to offer an interesting spin on the ZDNet story; one which makes more sense and one which satisfies my curiosity until the next press release from Apple.