[G4] Apple's New G5 Marketing Approach

[Joseph B. Gurman]

     jgvp wrote:

>A very odd incident occurred yesterday evening. My wife called me to
>the phone as Eric of Apple wished to speak to me. Not having
>communicated in any way with Apple recently, I was intrigued with why
>they would want to phone me. Eric stated: " I hear you're thinking
>about buying a G5 ?" I replied "Yes, you're right about that, at the
>moment I just happen to be thinking about it !"
>Naturally, you have thoughts running through your head such as: "where
>did he get this kind of information from ? However, whenever I asked
>such a question, I would hear Eric say " this line is breaking up, I
>couldn't hear what you just said properly." I wasn't using my cellular
>so any break up must have been caused at his end (?).

     Well, you _are_ in Canada, right? (Sorry.) Actually, if as Shawn 
King suggests, the call was from a marketing firm working for Apple, 
they probably buy outgoing long distance in blocks from a 
consolidator, and those connections can be quite poor.

[snip]

>Since the number of orders for the G5 is such that there is
>a back-log of >2 months, why would Apple see a need to seek additional
>sales by using techniques that, so far as I am concerned, are rather
>extraordinary to say the least ?

     One can speculate on at least two reasons why Apple is beating 
the bushes: first, the stories of backlogs may have led to a tailing 
off of new orders for G5's (some people might figure they wouldn't 
get theirs until January, when price changes/speed bumps 
traditionally occur?), and Apple wants to keep those sales figures 
booming for the next quarterly report (e.g. reversing the trend of 
declining revenues from the desktop line); second, this might be 
honest-to-gosh market research, and they're trying to forecast demand 
so they can determine whether to pay top dollar for priority 
production from IBM, add production facilities, add shifts on the 
existing lines, &c.

     A third, and somewhat more sordid, possibility is that they're 
trying to shill business for the Apple Store, and take it away from 
resellers such as jgvp's favorite one. Given Apple's current 
relations with some of its resellers, that would be in poor taste, to 
say the least.

						Joe Gurman
-- 
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by."
                                                             - Douglas 
Adams, 1952 - 2001

Joseph B. Gurman, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Solar Physics
Branch, Greenbelt MD 20771 USA