[Ti] iTunes bypassing Canada [OT - RANT]

[John Griffin]

Murray Kastner typed this message on 7/1/04 4:31 PM:

> As a Canadian and a user of Macintoshes since the 128k (still have
> it!) I can attest to the fact that Apple Canada seems to march to its
> own drummer. On one hand they have different market forces and a
> variety of governmental hoops to hop through but on the other hand
> they can be somewhat obdurate and rather high-handed. I was 'forced'
> to buy a PowerBook in the USA two years ago when Apple Canada refused
> to readjust their prices in keeping with the rather drastic
> realignment in currency exchange rates. Although I am usually a loyal
> customer through my dealer here in Montreal, I could not ignore the
> fact that Apple Canada maintained their price structure far too long
> and I was able to save more than $1000.00 bypassing the Canadian
> channel. Since I also have a residence in the USA, I was able to do
> it but they did not make friends of the people who had no options but
> to overpay or switch platforms. The windows boxes kept pace with the
> currency changes.

Murry, I too still have my 128K Mac from Feb. 1984 which I am someday going
to convert to a goldfish bowl! Apple Canada used to be the model of how
things should be done. They were indeed passionate evangelists who went to
user group to user group touting Apple products. They gave support to Apple
retailers and encouraged them. They even had one of the most amazing BBS
systems running out of Apple which was called M.A.G.I.C (I forgot what it
stood for). It used SoftArc software and was Internet accessable. Mark
Windrim was the Sysop and was a whiz at his job.

Then things changed at Apple. They got leadership that became suspicious and
paranoid. They suspected bad things going on at M.A.G.I.C., closed it down
and gave Windrim his walking papers. They largely withdrew support to User
Groups and retailers. In fact, all they seem to be right now is a warehouse
for overpriced Apple products.

Pretty discouraging! Obviously they have a much better and aggressive
presence in Europe and Asia then north of the border.

On the other hand, Microsoft and Intel have a much more friendly and open
operation here then Apple. It is almost enough to "switch" from Apple to
Windows.

jg