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A bad move by Apple when they are fighting a RICO lawsuit...

Here sign this "Get out of Litigation Free" card for us or we'll put some of you out-of-business. Sounds like heavy handed RICO-style tactics to me.
 
Re: Bad News from ThinkSecret

Originally posted by Datazoid
Apple's gotta stop doing things like this to retailers; pretty soon there won't be anybody left selling Macs (except Apple themselves).

see link: http://www.thinksecret.com/news/dealercontracts.html

Bingo! Now you're getting it. Apple doesn't care about their retail channel. That's why they've opened Apple Stores.

Apple is trying to maximize profits and to do so they must cut out the middle men and keep those profts that would normally go to the independant stores. People this is all by design.
 
Apple loves to screw themselves. Everytime things start looking up they somehow find a way to mess it up. With all of the charisma and innovation he brings, Jobs has no sense of how to run a business.
 
Originally posted by FelixDerKater
Apple loves to screw themselves. Everytime things start looking up they somehow find a way to mess it up. With all of the charisma and innovation he brings, Jobs has no sense of how to run a business.

Jobs is elitist in the extreme. Its sad actually and unfortunately there's not much you can do about.

I wonder if General Cybernetics got screwed again....

D
 
Yes, we've seen this with the recent PB 17 shipping "issues". Too bad Apple has chosen this route. We're seeing the Clone Wars all over again. Oh, and don't forget they chose not to license their OS when the had the chance. It's all about control. Unfortunately, they chose to fight those that would ultimately expand their profits and marketshare. Bummer.
 
wow, im still confused by the article. were they contracts sent to apple and they rejected them, or were they contracts sent to the resellers and they rejected them?

iJon
 
The way I understand it, Apple sent new contracts to the resellers, who rejected them. Then some resellers sent Apple a list of changes to the contracts which would satisfy their objections, and Apple rejected those changes.
 
Originally posted by szark
The way I understand it, Apple sent new contracts to the resellers, who rejected them. Then some resellers sent Apple a list of changes to the contracts which would satisfy their objections, and Apple rejected those changes.
now that makes more sense, thanks.

iJon
 
This is getting really old. I loved that organizations like Target were able to sell apple products. For those of us in the boonies that was really really nice. There will never be an apple store in the part of Idaho I live in but Target is right around the corner. Stupid Apple Stupid Apple Stupid Apple. This sucks more for their customers than it hurts them thats for sure. Do they honestly believe that they will sell windows ipods in mass through apple.com? Honestly that is ridiculous.
 
Ridiculous.

I had a legal counsel advise to accept these types of agreements with ridiculous restrictions on litigation simply because such silly restrictions ("i.e. no jury trial") never hold up before a judge.

Apple should focus on making great computers and getting them out the door (period).
 
Re: Re: Bad News from ThinkSecret

Originally posted by nuckinfutz
Bingo! Now you're getting it. Apple doesn't care about their retail channel. That's why they've opened Apple Stores.

Apple is trying to maximize profits and to do so they must cut out the middle men and keep those profts that would normally go to the independant stores. People this is all by design.

I hope Job's and his minions aren't quite that arrogant, but you may be right.

But it's just not strategically sound. Apple should consider themselves in the business of making innovative hardware and software, that's where their smarts are, not in running retail shops.

It would be suicide for Apple to try to do a Dell, using the Apple shop format alone. Of course, they got this idea from Sony, and it's a good idea to raise profile and strengthen the brand. But let's face it, Sony have many other retail channels. Sony would sink quicker than HMAS Hood (10 minutes from the time it engaged Bismarck - if your'e wondering :) ) if it had to rely on Sony shops alone.

There are many professional retailers out there who know their business. Apple really needs to suck up to these guys, instead they've always given them a hard time. I've never understood that.
 
this is kinda nasty. i mean, apple, i hope, can't afford to lose the 3rd party retailers now. it would be fine in, say, a few years if they get their apple stores way widespread, but i know i for one depend heavily on them, not being within 3 hours' drive of an apple store... they should wait to burn bridges.
 
nobody panic...

Al Gore will straighten all of this out...and it will involve some sort of lockbox I'm sure...

2...3...4...

(sound of crickets chirping)

Rustus
 
Apple may be a year away from losing Adobe and their resellers. Wow, that takes quiet an impressive string of dumb business decisions --- one after another for Apple.

Apple stores exist for the sole purpose of advertising. Their stores, as well as their presence in busy urban centres, serve as an advertisement for their product. That is why Sony has it's own stores. They sell Sony products all over the place, but the stores that are most important are their own. Looking at a Sony stereo system in a Futureshop (Canada's largest electronics store chain) store is great, and very convenient, but looking at one in a beautiful Sony store, being immersed in the Sony brand itself is the reason those stores exist. Even if the half the number of stores started losing money, they would still be kept open as long as the losses at each location are not too high. Interactive branded worlds like NikeTown are the same way. No NikeTown has ever turned a profit. Nike knows this, but they don't care because they have hundreds of thousands of stores selling their product. Niketown is treated as an interactive advertisement to lure potential customers into experiencing the Nike brand. An experience is much more memorable than an advertisement, so the money spent on these enormous stores is just another Nike advertising expense. If a customer has a great time at a NikeTown, s/he may consider purchasing a pair of Nike basketball shoes more strongly the next time s/he needs to purchase a pair of shoes.

Apple needs to stop treating their stores as their most important revenue source, and treat it as an interactive Apple amusement park to allow potential customers to enjoy their Apple experience, and either purchase their product right there at the Apple store itself, or allow the customer to make a decision at a later date, and purchase one at a nearby reseller at a Target store when the time is right, as Jaredbbauer had suggested. To compete with your own resellers is to cannabalize your own sales. Why would you want to do that?
 
Re: Re: Bad News from ThinkSecret

Originally posted by nuckinfutz
Bingo! Now you're getting it. Apple doesn't care about their retail channel. That's why they've opened Apple Stores.

Apple is trying to maximize profits and to do so they must cut out the middle men and keep those profts that would normally go to the independant stores. People this is all by design.
the problem with your reasoning is that it's not how business works. you don't simply get to claim all those profits. by selling products direct, you incur a whole bunch of other costs. that's why most companies sell their stuff to a retailer who turns around and "resells" it. that's why their called resellers. that way manufacturers don't have to worry about all the costs that come with running a retail store--like sales employees, teenage cashiers, among a whole gamut of other things. The only reason dell survives with their business model is that they started out that way and built themselves a good rep with businesses, who buy in large quantities and make great return customers. HP or Sony would die in a second if they simply pulled the plug on all the Compusas and Circuit Cities and tried to be the exclusive reseller of their own products.
 
One thing everyone is missing by making comparisons to PC manufactures is the fact that yes...they would die if they only ran there own stores, but that is because people would just by a different branded PC.

Apple is apple, its the only place that makes macs. So if you want a mac then your going to get it on their website or at one of their stores which will soon be everywhere.

Think of the PC market as an Orange and Apple as well, Apples. you cant compare them.

Apple has no competitors therefore YES they can survive doing this. If you want a mac you'll get it. Keeping everything in their stores allows them to keep tight control of their products. If they want to know how many iPods are still out there before they make an update they would know easily. If they are all at different retailers they have no control over it. It's not like apple can log onto best buys inventory control and see it.

It's a very smart move.
 
The service

I direct attention to another part of the article mentioning the problems with service. I worked in Apple service for a couple years with well known and respected reseller. Myself and another guy were doing the service. It was a complicated system of ordering parts and sending them back, but we did it, we sent them all back. First of all, we saw so many new defective units come in there. When the 333MHz iMacs were new, they filled the office. Older ones too. It got to the point where if an iMac came in the door, we could pretty much just go ahead and order a processor to replace it, though a couple times the replacement was faulty as well! Anyway, back to the returning of parts, we were billed over $10000 I think for non-returned parts. My co-worker was fired. I know for a fact that those parts were returned. I tracked them, kept thorough records. My boss at the time did not believe that Apple was at fault after Apple talked with him. I think after a while though he saw a pattern and closed the service department entirely (and that's where my story of service ends :-(). My hunch is that Apple looks at how much business service providers are doing and charges them based on that somehow. Perhaps it is just some sort of fraud going on in Laguana Beach, or perhaps their accounting department just needs a complete overhaul. Your thoughts?
 
To those of you who seem to think Apple is screwing all retailers, you are wrong. The only resellers that are pissed at Apple and the contract Apple offered are those resellers that are close to Apple stores. These resellers are pissed because customers are going to have a tremendously better shopping experience at an Apple store and wonder why the hell they ever went to that crummy reseller to begin with. Lets face it, most resellers don't have the image and the style to their stores like they should. Most are just hole-in-the-wall shops in crappy parts of town. Who wants to go to a store thats crappy looking and have to possibly fight your way in and shoot your way out? I dont know why the resellers are complaining anyway. They make very little if any money on hardware sales. The real money is in service, warranty work and accessories. You would think the resellers would be happy to have that burden lifted off of them. I think the ideal shop would be a warranty repair, service and accessories store. And if you wanted you could sell used machines.

But then again, I could be wrong :rolleyes:
 
How many people actually buy from the small time resellers anyway? Just curious. Hey that should be a MacPoll!
 
Originally posted by guerro
To those of you who seem to think Apple is screwing all retailers, you are wrong. The only resellers that are pissed at Apple and the contract Apple offered are those resellers that are close to Apple stores. These resellers are pissed because customers are going to have a tremendously better shopping experience at an Apple store and wonder why the hell they ever went to that crummy reseller to begin with. Lets face it, most resellers don't have the image and the style to their stores like they should. Most are just hole-in-the-wall shops in crappy parts of town. Who wants to go to a store thats crappy looking and have to possibly fight your way in and shoot your way out? I dont know why the resellers are complaining anyway. They make very little if any money on hardware sales. The real money is in service, warranty work and accessories. You would think the resellers would be happy to have that burden lifted off of them. I think the ideal shop would be a warranty repair, service and accessories store. And if you wanted you could sell used machines.

But then again, I could be wrong :rolleyes:

Amen!
 
It looks and sounds worse than it is.

Of the many people I know who have switched to Macs over the past year, they all have said that they made that decision by engaging knowledgable staff at the Apple Store.

They admitted that although they had seen Macs in the larger computer stores [Fry's, MicroCenter] they had never inquired about them. Not only because of the distractions posed by all the other stuff in the store, but mainly because the employees, more often than not, are frickin' idiots in regards to most everything in the store. They're just paid name badges.

Sorry to be so harsh, but this view is shared by pretty much everyone I know and it's not limited to computer knowledge. I have, in 10 years met 2 people in the Mac section of a Microcenter that were worthy of being there. It's not worth it. I've actually been steered away from Macs because the generic MicroCenter employee in that section could not answer my questions which I've always known the answer to. Just testing them.

Just because these stores had Mac sections, doesn't mean that the part-time commission based teenager who happened to have been scheduled to work in the Mac section knows anything about Macs. I hate asking for help at these places for anything, let alone asking for some meaningful insight as to why I should buy a Mac over a Windows computer.

This is why Apple has started placing their own employees, or at least Apple certified employees, in CompUSA's Mac sections.

MISREPRESENTATION at these mammoth computer stores has hurt Apple more than their occasional sales have helped. I say, cut these idiots off.

I do hope that the smaller, and often very knowledgable individual resellers, do not become collateral damage though.:(

Keep only the people and outlets worthy of representing Apple and Macintosh computers in the loop. Knowledgable individual resellers, chains and franchises with Apple certified/Apple direct staff, keep building Apple Stores, and maintain the Apple Store online.
 
Originally posted by nero007
How many people actually buy from the small time resellers anyway? Just curious. Hey that should be a MacPoll!

we didn't!
From the Apple UK store, it would have costs us around an extra 60/70 pounds to get the same 700mhz iBook (with the max 640mb ram) - so shopped at the likes of GHC and Computer Warehouse that both offered the same model cheaper:)

Applestore needs to revamp their pricing structure, esp when it comes to the extras you can slap in - like ram!

Shame, as i'd love to have shopped directly from apple...
 
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