SO!
I checked these out at work today. I don't wanna give anything away that might get me in trouble. But these SKU's are in the inventory system. Bit of good news and bad news for all of you making wild assumptions as to this. I've seen the full screen of where these can be found in the system so i know a bit more about all this.
Good news is that all 12 of these "placeholder" SKU's are NEW SKU's to the company. FS uses the same WebID system as Best buy (we share some of the same inventory control systems). And as some one who's been with the company for a bit i know that all those new SKU's i saw on the screen today WERE NEW. Trust me on this. There is also VERY good indication that EVERY one of these SKU's is a LAPTOP of some kind, (hence the 602 beside them all...)
Now the bad news. Even tho it shows 6 English versions and 6 french, that means by NO MEANS will they be releasing six new products. they could, but they could also be only releasing 1 or like 4. There seems to be evidence in the depths of the system of older placeholders from long days past where lest say they had a few new placeholders, but then only used a couple of them.
Now i know for a fact that the WebID's (SKU's) that were on the full screen of that page when i looked it up shows webID numbers, fake bar code numbers, and fake prices. And i normally know that if it shows up in your system like this (or with the fill information on the product) then an actual product isn't far behind. BS to what bestbuy associate said that these are in the system in prep for anticipation that apple MIGHT release something soon. I'd go so far to make the claim that the top brass for purchasing departments of large companies like Future shop, Best buy, and Circuit City know a lot more about what about to come, they just aren't talking. Thats fine, i don't mind the suspense.
Personally for me this shows that yes, there are new laptops coming, and for what i can tell only new laptops. I wish i would have known to look for this kinda thing a couple weeks ago before the new iPods so i could compare instances and give a better idea of what it is were seeing.