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Apple Re-Reverses G4 Order Cancellations

Posted by Roblimo on from the big-business-shenanigans dept.

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."

2 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. everybody remain calm by Dragonfly · · Score: 5

    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.

  2. Apple announcement ? by fizzz · · Score: 5

    Is it me or wouldn't it be a good thing to simply wait for a formal Apple announcement as to their decision.

    Moreover, if a message on ZDNet had been posted about anything of usual interest to /. 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.

    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.