Well we all know this hasn't been the best of quarters for apple, but they are starting to suck so bad in the UK marketplace it's unbelievable.
While Dell and others are cutting prices in Europe and the UK (due to dollar:UK sterling rate), Apple hasn't budged. They must be making a killing on this, and it sucks to watch this happen.
They have next to no marketshare - I know one person with a CRT iMac and that's it. Why? Because prices are way too high.
Let's compare Dell with Apple, for example. I'm not going to bring the $:£ conversion rate in because it doesn't take in to account cost of living, taxes and many other things. However, I can compare Dell to Apple.
Apple's budget offering:
eMac G4
1GHz PowerPC G4
128MB SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA drive
DVD/CD-RW drive
ATI Radeon 7500
32MB DDR video memory
56K internal modem
£649.00 inc VAT (sales tax) and delivery.
Dell's budget offering:
Intel Celeron 2.4ghz (yes, it's a celeron but it will beat the 1ghz G4)
256mb RAM
40GB HDD
Printer/Scanner/Copier inc. in price
17" Monitor
DVD/CDRW
£376.67(incl. VAT & Del)
I know the dell is a vastly poorer machine, but is it any wonder 'newbies' are going to stick to the dell? dell advertises all the time, Apple hardly ever (ipod if anything) and look at the price difference. Also, the Dell will be far easier to upgrade, and will perform better (I'm tempted to buy a Dell and put Fedora Core 2 Linux on when it's out - it's a great OS with less and less usability problems every release).
Hopefully Apple is gonna get off it's ass and do something otherwise the UK market is not going to come back to Apple. I'm hoping the London store will make some changes in Apple's policy to merry ol' england but it doesn't look great.
PS: Why the hell is the Ireland site grouped with the UK site? It makes no sense at all, especially since Ireland now has the Euro and the UK has Pound Sterling....
While Dell and others are cutting prices in Europe and the UK (due to dollar:UK sterling rate), Apple hasn't budged. They must be making a killing on this, and it sucks to watch this happen.
They have next to no marketshare - I know one person with a CRT iMac and that's it. Why? Because prices are way too high.
Let's compare Dell with Apple, for example. I'm not going to bring the $:£ conversion rate in because it doesn't take in to account cost of living, taxes and many other things. However, I can compare Dell to Apple.
Apple's budget offering:
eMac G4
1GHz PowerPC G4
128MB SDRAM
40GB Ultra ATA drive
DVD/CD-RW drive
ATI Radeon 7500
32MB DDR video memory
56K internal modem
£649.00 inc VAT (sales tax) and delivery.
Dell's budget offering:
Intel Celeron 2.4ghz (yes, it's a celeron but it will beat the 1ghz G4)
256mb RAM
40GB HDD
Printer/Scanner/Copier inc. in price
17" Monitor
DVD/CDRW
£376.67(incl. VAT & Del)
I know the dell is a vastly poorer machine, but is it any wonder 'newbies' are going to stick to the dell? dell advertises all the time, Apple hardly ever (ipod if anything) and look at the price difference. Also, the Dell will be far easier to upgrade, and will perform better (I'm tempted to buy a Dell and put Fedora Core 2 Linux on when it's out - it's a great OS with less and less usability problems every release).
Hopefully Apple is gonna get off it's ass and do something otherwise the UK market is not going to come back to Apple. I'm hoping the London store will make some changes in Apple's policy to merry ol' england but it doesn't look great.
PS: Why the hell is the Ireland site grouped with the UK site? It makes no sense at all, especially since Ireland now has the Euro and the UK has Pound Sterling....