Powerbook 17inch Discounts @ Apple?

[MacRumors]

One anonymous report claims that the Powerbook 17" is currently being given significant discounts as an internal promotion to Apple employees. The 17" Powerbook promotion purchases do not count towards the usual number of machines that can be bought at discount per year.

Special promotion lasts until September 26th, or while supplies last.

[jaedreth]

Too bad I quit. *heh*

Don't have the $$ anyway, so it makes no difference.

Jaedreth

[ig-88]

this supports the Sept. 27th release date for the new powerbooks that I've seen on other message boards. hold yer breath... or don't. :)

[ZildjianKX]

Interesting how that coincides nicely w/ when the academic coupon ends...

So should we expect Tues Sept 30th?

[cb911]

Originally posted by ig-88
this supports the Sept. 27th release date for the new powerbooks that I've seen on other message boards. hold yer breath... or don't. :)

what other boards would they be? and if it was in Sept wouldn't Apple release it at MW Paris? isnt' that on in Sept?

[jaedreth]

Apple could announce them in Paris, and still release them on the 30th... The 15" later if necessary. But at least announce an exact date, so the agony is spared.

Jaedreth

[TylerL]

The deal is most likely an end-of-quarter thing.

[CaVoLo]

i recently talked 2 a friend who is a contractor for apple....he actually worked on the G5 and has seen them b4 and he says that the pictures dont do it justice....anyways....he said the price that the employees get on the powerbook 17" is 2500

[ig-88]

Originally posted by cb911
what other boards would they be? and if it was in Sept wouldn't Apple release it at MW Paris? isnt' that on in Sept?

Here's a post from the MacNN Powerbook Forum. It sorta backs this up a bit.

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?threadid=169732

[blueflame]

Is is possible that apple is pulling an Intel?
It seems to me, that apple may just release the new moto processor and put in in the powerbooks as a g5. kind of like what intel did with ther centrino. then the g4 could become the low end of the line, and go into ibooks, increasing the jump for eveything.

what do ya'll think, this seems entirely feasable.
Andreas

[Omek]

Danget! I hope they're released at the Paris Expo or maybe before that so I can still get one of the cool Apple deals. I like that one that lets you buy Final Cut Express for $99 when you buy ANY Mac!!!!! That's why I hope they update them earlier so I can get my order in....

[Omek]

Originally posted by blueflame
Is is possible that apple is pulling an Intel?
It seems to me, that apple may just release the new moto processor and put in in the powerbooks as a g5. kind of like what intel did with ther centrino. then the g4 could become the low end of the line, and go into ibooks, increasing the jump for eveything.

what do ya'll think, this seems entirely feasable.
Andreas

It think they could get away with that. They could just give that old crappy G4 processor to the ibooks... I don't think they could call the Powerbooks "G5s" until they get the actuall 970 or 980 in there....

[DHagan4755]

Originally posted by Macrumors
Special promotion lasts until September 26th, or while supplies last. Here's a question for anyone that knows...

Has Apple run a promo like this before and released new product - yet continue the promo on old stock? Or does Apple typically wait until the promo is over, then release an upgrade?

[blueflame]

Intel had the pentium 4m processor, that was way scaled back, and actually, just a different processor, that they called P4, i would assume apple could do the same
Andreas

[Sherman]

It still sucked power like you had 4 extra displays on there or something.

Might as well just get a p3. It'll be just as fast but it won't eat your battery as much.

Back onto the topic though, I hope that they do release some new powerbooks. The 12" and definitely the 15" have really reached the end of their life cycle and are way overdue for an upgrade.

[jaedreth]

This has never happened before. We face an entirely new situation.

Previously, Apple naturally runs out of stock in time for updates because Apple stops producing products at the right time. Apple is usually very coordinated in this respect.

However Moto has thrown a few hundred monkey wrenches into Apple's Works... (pun intended)

So, no, I've not seen anything like this with Apple before.

Jaedreth

[Billicus]

Originally posted by jaedreth
This has never happened before. We face an entirely new situation.

Previously, Apple naturally runs out of stock in time for updates because Apple stops producing products at the right time. Apple is usually very coordinated in this respect.

However Moto has thrown a few hundred monkey wrenches into Apple's Works... (pun intended)

So, no, I've not seen anything like this with Apple before.

Jaedreth

Lol...:D

Come on, whoever is holding up the pipeline on these PowerBooks should be tarred and feathered...:mad:

[jaedreth]

Yeah, and I know who: Motorola.

Someone should do a photoshop pic of the Motorola symbol with tar and feathers on it... LOL

Jaedreth

[sanford]

If they'd knock $400 off the retail price of the 17" in addition to cutting a great deal for their employees, they'd almost certainly manage to sell me one. I'd certainly forego the new-and-improved in Sept. or Oct. for a $2900 17" *now*.

[esome]

Just curious, but does anyone know how much of a discount is being offered to the Apple employees in this case? I mean exactly how much is a 17" powerbook in this deal?

thanks!

[sanford]

It's $2500, so $800 off retail but only $400 off the old employee price of $2900 (I have a friend who used to work for Apple and she told me what the original 17" discount price was).

[jaedreth]

Usually it would be 10% discount for one computer bought for oneself, and 5% discount on two computers bought for friends/family. Yet this doesn't count towards these limits, and would likely be 10% of the discounted price.

But that's pure speculation.

Jaedreth

[sanford]

I don't think Apple uses discount percentages as is common for most retail outlet purchase programs. They set an employee purchase price for systems and distribute a price list. Of course, mathematically, it's always some percentage off retail, but there is no set percentage and it varies from product to product.

[sanford]

This does make me wonder if we might indeed some steep retail discount for customers on the 17" coming up soon. They've already discounted the TiBook and the 12" PowerBook -- and the 12" was apparently selling like hotcakes without a discount. If they have a surplus of 17s and are looking at a couple months or more before than can ship the new models, a few hundred dollars off would lean me much further in the direction of purchasing.

[jaedreth]

Well, they have the Apple Store Online, why wouldn't they have an internal version? I'm not an employee, so I wouldn't have access to exact pricing, but on average, those figures I gave should be consistent.

Jaedreth

[DHagan4755]

I have a friend that works for Apple. There is an internal online Apple Store. I've seen it. It's a more of a facsimilie of the regular customer online store. It's watered down. IIRC, it seems to have less configuration and more "as is" offers on current products. It's less tidy from a web design stand point too. Regardless, when last I checked, the prices on all models seemed to be roughly 25% less than regular prices. That was about six months ago though. They hadn't yet offered the 17-inch for sale yet because it hadn't shipped to regular customers.

[deathandtaxes]

That Sept 30 date looks really likely. The iPod bundle ends Sept 27. I was hoping to get the $200 rebate when I bought a new 15" PB, but now I see that they have this time to prevent that.
Drat!:mad:

[DHagan4755]

From Powerbookcentral.com

Current Apple Store PowerBook shipping times
Tuesday, July 29 2003 @ 9:57 PM CT | Article Link
There has been a 3-5 day wait for 12" PowerBooks at The Apple Store for at least the past week or so. The 1GHz 15" model is listed with a 1-3 day wait, while the 15" 867MHz model went from 'Same Day' shipping earlier today to a 1-3 day wait. The 17" PowerBook (and all three iBooks) are available with 'Same Day' shippin

[merges]

Originally posted by jaedreth
Too bad I quit. *heh*

Don't have the $$ anyway, so it makes no difference.


You are clearly lying about having worked for Apple based on your later comments in this thread about "normal" discounts.

[jaedreth]

I said *when* I worked for Apple.

I didn't say when.

And I may have a bad memory, but I wasn't lying.

So next time, try to be less rude.

Either the discounts were better than I remembered, me having not been to the aepp store in a while, or the prices having improved since I left are two perfectly good possibilities without jumping to the conclusion I lied.

Perhaps the figures were more like 25% and 10%. It's not worth calling names about.

I left because Apple is getting almost as bad to work for as Dell...

Jaedreth

[rt_brained]

Originally posted by jaedreth
I left because Apple is getting almost as bad to work for as Dell...

Jaedreth You worked for Dell too? *When*?

[griff]

Here is the config:

PB 17" 512MB, 1GHz $2499.00 Doesn't list what size harddrive.

Also:

17" 1GHz iMac, 256MB , 80GB HDD, SuperDrive for $1399.00

iSight $119

They also have the 15" iMac and 12" 14" iBooks in the promo along with various other things.

I don't work for Apple.