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Apple Businesses

Apple & The G4 Order Truth 88

Posted by Hemos from the finally-in-the-clear dept.
ferret wrote to us with the final word from high at Apple about what's up with the G4 Orders. No, they are not cancelled. Yes, there's been a confusion. 400 and 450 Mhz machines will ship as originally promised, but the 500 Mhz machine will not ship until next year. This means that customer who ordered a 500 Mhz will be offered a 450 Mhz machine for now.
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Apple & The G4 Order Truth More

Apple & The G4 Order Truth

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  • hmm.... since we changed our minds in excess of five times, i guess i got caught up in the flurry of emails... and I'm the last person who'd want to be spreading FUD... I've already submitted the correction...
  • Christmas won't be as merry as expected in Cupertino, CA.

    Not bloody likely. Apple has had big delivery problems this quarter with introducing three new product lines, the iBook, iMac TNG, and the G4's. There is TREMENDOUS pent up demand for these machines. Well over 500,000 back orders. As a result analysts are predicting that the Christmas season will be a huge blow out quarter for Apple despite some of the advertising and other expenses.

    If you don't believe me take a look at:

    http://biz.yahoo.com/z/a/a/aapl.html

    Analysts are estimating 0.86 per share earnings, vs. net of 0.51 this quarter. This is a 60% INCREASE.

  • Yep, but they didn't keep the money.

    All in all, in the end they handled it well (I was wondering there for a bit, though).

    - Darchmare
    - Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
  • The plastic wrapping material the G4's ship in is responsible for this smell. Once the plastic wrap is removed it takes 2-3 days before the smell fully dissipates. If you want it gone sooner, try Febreze (be sure to unplug it though).
  • Apple's stock has always been screwy. They always seem to do well when others are doing poorly, and vice versa.

    A couple years ago, when they started making profits again, I noticed that whenever they'd announce a profit their stock would dip.

    The last week or so has seen a terrible drop in the US stock exchange, and Apple really screwed up with the miscommunication, but their stock goes up.

    Go figure. Like in everything else related to Apple, their stock trends are REALLY weird.

    - Darchmare
    - Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net

  • Re:Um.. (Score:1)

    by jafac ( 1449 )
    There IS a shortage as well. Low production yeilds. The 500MHz problem is a separate issue.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
  • Motorola knew that they weren't quite ready for full production, and warned Apple of that

    Ummmm No, A lot of what Apple is doing is because of increased DRAM prices and the fact that Motorola sprung the 500 MHz bug on them. Niether of these are under Apple's control.



  • One, there won't be any revenues from those $3,500 G4-500's. Sales of $3,500 G4-450s will probably be lower.

    Aren't the people who ordered a 500 getting either the 450 model at its original price, or the 500 with a 450 chip for $350 less (the customer's choice)? This article was unclear about what "its original price" referred to, but I think it means you can get the 450 model for its original price. The original "we'll honor the orders for the Apple Store" press release said $350 off your 500 if it has a 450 chip. It's the original build-to-order price on that model if you selected a 450 instead of 500.

  • Go figure. Like in everything else related to Apple, their stock trends are REALLY weird.

    It only looks weird because people here are focusing on what is really only a small part of what is going on at Apple:

    1. Apple introduces several new lines of kick-butt products; iBook, iMac DTV, G4 Professional Boxes.

    2. Apple announces higher than expected earnings and projections and that because of massive backorders they are going to have a blowout fourth quarter.

    3. Apple announces unit shipments are targetted to be 40% higher next year, thus increasing market share.

    4. Apple announces G4 supply problems - cannot deliver as many machines as users want to buy.

    5. Apple announces Mac OS X preview due in spring.

    6. Apple annonces inventory pipeline averaged TWO DAYS in 1999. Best in industry, better than even Dell.

    The only one of these that is remotely negative is No. 4, and even that is a problem most businesses would really like to have.

  • Rhapsody isn't a G3 only product. It's not even a product. You might as well complain that Microsoft's Cairo won't run on your Pentium 200 ... it never shipped either. Sure, they'll use a lot of the technology from Rhapsody in Mac OS X, but it will be quite a different beast.
  • I invite all Apple Bashers to leave this area and join the Yahoo club at http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/appled oomsdayclock [yahoo.com] instead. Leave Slashdot free of the computer wars.

    Also visit http://www.netherworld.com/~mgabrys/clock [netherworld.com] for the real ADC.

  • Granted, but they still shouldn't have announced the G4s as shipping machines when they did. They should have demoed them and said "we'll have these ready to ship soon" or something, not "they're shipping today".
  • Its nice to see that apple finally came to its senses. Alienating a huge portion of its customer base with its first move was a really crappy thing to do, price increases and all. Although the user's trust in apple is lessened, at least some is regained.
  • It's refreshing to see that Jobs has heeded the outraged howl from us wannabe-G4 owners. It will be interesting to see what the idiots on Wall St. and various so-called expert "analysts" make of this. Hopefully this will be the last word on this minor fiasco. Good call, Steve.
  • Hey, where'd all the comments go?

    (in case they turn up later; this was posted when there were no comments on any articles).

  • Weee, Weee, Weee, I go around in circles, ah oh, headache....I feal like Im drunk....time to program..err, play quake.

  • All this fiasco with apple lately can't be doing Apple's new found stream-lined image any good. The "new" Apple under Jobs was meant to be deliver their promises and give the pedestrian, simple-minded PC user a simple choice for entry level computing. Recently though it would seem that they are gradually reverting back to the dark old days of the mid-90s, where promises were broken and Apple had a product line as long as the great wall. All these uncertainties about shipping and such is undoing any work they did in trying not to appear confusing to the clue less consumer. As far as I know one of the many reasons that Apple suffered their big crash was that they were announcing things that they could not deliver. As the pre-orders came in, the deadline for the newbies were pushed back. By the time it came out on the market the public had already moved on to other things. Although this maybe not a major reason's for apple's fall, disillusionment & disappointment was rife among the consumers who were told that their new Macs won't be on our door step for another 4 months or so. I hope Apple surely doesn't fall down this same path again & undo all the good work they have been doing. With all that had happened in the past 2 months or so, you'd be forgiven for being a bit sceptical...

  • I realize there was a shortage of systems, but Apple has not handled communication with customers very well. I ordered a system over a month ago, and would like to be using it by now, but instead I'm wondering if I'll ever see it, and if so, when. I've got some software I'd like to be developing and testing on the Mac, but if the machine never arrives, we'll sooner drop the Mac version of the product than waste a lot of time trying to figure out what is going on with the Mac order...

    Also, since I placed the order on Amex, I have no idea whether they're going to charge me full price from a month ago, or an adjusted price, and the only way I'll find out seems to be when the statement comes in - because Apple has said nothing about it.

    This G4 was my first Macintosh since the 8100 series, and it seems that Apple still can't get it together to make me a happy customer - even from the start. I've had more problems with "friendly" Apple than any other vendor I've had to deal with... it's too bad, their hardware is great (their OS is just ok these days), but they just seem to be destined to make stupid mistakes and annoy a lot of customers...

    What they need more than anything is a new commitment to actually handling customer (and developer!) relations issues in a sufficient manner... cool hardware and cool TV commercials are not enough...
  • I know Apple isn't our favorite hardware or software vendor here on Slashdot. Truthfully, I wish someone would take the PowerPC Open Platform and implement it, but you are not my fairy godmother(s) and so I will just stick to my feelings on this issue.
    Apple lowered the performance on its G4 line due to a constraint in chip demands. This is called Supply and Demand (Hey! US Patent Office! Trademark that, why don't you?) It is not so much a price increase as a performance decrease to help meet demand. Their decision, however, to cancel previous individual orders was wrong, and they realize this. Now, onto the big question:
    If VA Linux Systems designed a series of servers with the IA-64 chip (Itanium *blech*), and chip yields on the higher end were less than expected, would their be so much gossip about it if they followed Apple's idea to lower performance on the models offered, yet honored their old orders? No, I am sure there wouldn't be... but Apple made two mistakes.
    1. Announced the configurations in a grand blaze of PR before all the details were assured.
    2. Cancelled orders from individuals.
    As someone who ordered a 7500/100 back right before the 7600 came out, I fell victim to #2. I recieved a letter saying it was delayed indefinitely, and I could either go with a different model, and wait on that to arrive, or wait on my 7500. However, my 7500 had already shipped, so when I called Apple to check on the status of my order, I was told it was already on its way to me.
    Now remember, this is before the iCeo came back. This is possibly even pre-Amelio, though I doubt that. Apple needs to make up its mind, recheck its facts, and then announce any changes. That should avoid fiascos such as this.

    'There is no spoon.' - Neo, the Matrix
    'SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!' - Tick, the Tick
  • uname on a Mac OS X box says

    Rhapsody

    Looks like its a G3 only product.
  • Either slashdot is broken or I'm getting first post a good two and a half hours after the story was posted to the main page.

    Taco! Hemos! Roblimo! Somebody! Help!
  • 1. Apple introduces several new lines of kick-butt products; iBook, iMac DTV, G4 Professional Boxes.

    I'd point out the saga of G4 tends to show that a good PR show doesn't always lead to a successful product launch. There's no doubt in my mind that Apple's G4 sales won't meet their internal projections. Not only do they have slimmer margins from DRAM prices, they won't sell many $3500 G4s.

    2. Apple announces higher than expected earnings and projections and that because of massive backorders they are going to have a blowout fourth quarter.

    Very true. Most analysts who commented did so by focusing on the coming quarter.

    3. Apple announces unit shipments are targetted to be 40% higher next year, thus increasing market share.

    I would disagree with that, since Apple's sales numbers are actually in decline.

    Apple Financial Results [corporate-ir.net] show a steady decline in international sales for the last 3 quarters. I'd agree we should see a big bump in unit shipment, much as there was a big jump with the introduction of the iMac. But true to history, Apple's sales just tapers off after a strong start.

    It is by no means assured that sales growth will continue.

    4. Apple announces G4 supply problems - cannot deliver as many machines as users want to buy.

    I guess this pretty much speaks for itself, but let's remember this point as we move to point #6.

    5. Apple announces Mac OS X preview due in spring.

    I don't see how this would excite investors. OS X is a clear move away from the old MacOS. The selling point of the consumer devices like iMac and iBook is ease of use. It hasn't been proven yet that OS X would offer the same features. The big benefits of OS X would have no impact on the consumer market at all, being more geared toward high power users.

    Don't get me wrong, it's an important development. But the market which would benefit from OS X is the one Apple retreated from a long time ago.

    6. Apple annonces inventory pipeline averaged TWO DAYS in 1999. Best in industry, better than even Dell.

    This folds right back into point #4. When you can't even supply your existing orders, then of course you have almost no inventory in the pipeline.

    The point of the build-to-order model is two-fold.

    1) Minimize inventory to free up working capital.
    2) Minimize delivery time

    Apple has achieved objective 1 at the cost of failing objective #2. Not a successful story, I think.

    Given a choice, would you prefer to have 2 days inventory and $700 million backlog or 2 weeks inventory and $195 million [$700 million * 28% margin] in your pocket??
  • The breakdown would go like this if you ordered a G4-500 for $3500.

    1) Take a G4-450 for $2,500, the price for a G4-450 before Oct. 13th.

    2) Take a G4-450 for $3,500, with an extra 128mb of memory and 7 extra GB of HD space.

    Now, which choice do you think people will make? What percentage of users would take option #2 and pay the extra $1,000 for 128mb/7GB HD?
  • Your right from what I gather. Still have not got a confirmation for my order to our U purchasing department tho...
  • That's an awfully confident posture to take about the price hike. Michael Dell confidently predicted 2 weeks ago that Dell wouldn't be impacted by the earthquake because of their volume buying power.

    Now, Dell is admitting a negative impact from the earthquake because of interruptions in DRAM and LCD production. Apple operates on an even slimmer inventory than Dell, plus outsources more of their manufacturing to Taiwan. The iBook is already shipping in smaller numbers than expected, after all.

    Finally, on September 3rd [before the G4 shortage and Taiwan earthquake], the First Call estimate was for $0.89 earning for Q1 '00. So the estimate of $0.86 quoted above is already discounted which is what I have predicted previously.
  • Or perhaps the Linux FUD Engine?
  • The whole thing was starting to reek of Intel.

    Glad to see that Apple got its head out of its ass and decided to do the Right Thing. I'm sure Jobs took great pleasure in firing the goofs that caused all the confusion. This never should have required him to get involved. At the first sign of trouble, Apple should have went public, and kept the customers happy. When you put the CEO in apologist mode, heads will roll.
  • Intel is having problems.
    Now Apple. Are they getting fat and lazy?

    This reminds me of Microworkz, sort of.
  • It's pretty obvious that a lot of Apple buyers are going to be pretty pissed off, and moreover, Apple will be losing a lot of sales that would've been definite before. I think that the problem goes deepr though. There's something rotten in the state of Apple - They would never have done something this stupid a year ago...

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • All in all, Apple did the Right Thing for once. (Score:3)

    by jht ( 5006 ) on Monday October 18, 1999 @05:39AM (#1605337) Homepage Journal
    After all the fuss (with virtually no official word from Apple, just rumors), Apple ends up doing even more than anybody hoped, and is honoring wholesale orders too - not just Apple Store orders. I guess we need to stop picking on them for a while.

    When you look at it, Apple did what they cood with a bad processor availability situation, and used this as leverage with their chip vendors to resolve a fork in the architecture. Remember, Apple was getting G4 processors directly from Motorola only - IBM hadn't been planning to build AltiVec enabled chips. IBM was doing fine with copper-based G3 processors and the embedded stuff. Now IBM is on the AltiVec bandwagon, Apple will get a more stable supply, and six months from now nobody will remember the fab problems that triggered this in the first place.

    - -Josh Turiel
  • It really bugs me when confusion hits a company product like this, mistake or no. It so easy to pull a microsoft and promise something that isn't there to get orders and/or interest. But it is great that they are offering a replacement for the time being. This is something expensive hardware manufacturers do all the time but pc/mac venders don't do very often.


    -- Moondog
  • Never in my days have I seen such a total debacle of corporate comminication. I think this really shows the importance of any company (small or large) keeping a good grasp on who's talking to who from inside the company.

    My guess is that "Apple" itself isn't really flip-flopping as much as we think they are - rather there are probably several individuals inside the company that haven't heard of this thing called a "phone" and can't quite coordinate what they're going to tell the press. None of the news stories or earlier press releases have indicated a uniform source of the information, and it's wise of them to have Steve Jobs give the final (or maybe not) word.

    So what started this whole problem in the first place? If I had to guess it's the fault of good 'ol Operations Research. I imagine Apple was faced with the straightforward financial problem of a drastic overdemand for their machies and an equally drastic undersupply of the key (i.e. 500Mhz) component of those machines.

    So they sat down, thought about what was going on, and attached a number to every "variable" they could come up with: What's the $-cost of downgrading everyone's chips versus the cost of delaying shipment versus the cost of making everyone re-order. These are not straightforward things to value, and, as we've seen fairly clearly, they underestimated the public's reaction. Now if they could just get the PR people to communicate.....

  • Um.. (Score:1)

    by JavaFox ( 98763 )
    I don't know much about marketing and stuff.. but it seems to me that when you get MONEY for SOMETHING YOU ADVERTISED.. you ship it. Am I missing something here?

  • Re:Rational discussion? (Score:3)

    by evano ( 55431 ) on Monday October 18, 1999 @05:53AM (#1605341)
    It's true that a lot of unfounded information gets circulated on the net. Even though we've mostly learned to disregard email concerning Little-Emily-With-Cancer's dying wishes, lots of us are still learning that we need to apply an extra level of scrutiny to even the mail services online. I think matters will sort out quite a bit as time goes by. Serious news media tend to filter out and become known for their reliability, even as the most atrocious gossip-mongers ooze their way to the lower end of the spectrum. While the net is still young, we readers will have to be alert. If we can't do that, we'll find ourselves in more situations like this business with Apple. There, the herd stampeded because very few stopped to consider the truth of the message. If Slashdot is going take responsibility for trying to avert such events, it will require a collective effort on the part of the readers to examine the sources of information we consume.

    evano
  • Though I doubt it will happen I'd like to see a rational discussion of what this whole affair means in terms of online journalism. What will actually happen will probably be another mudslide of pro- and anti-Apple vitriol, but what I saw here was a fine example of the Internet's effect on the distribution of information. I think that the morass of conflicting information which made this whole event such a circus was only possible with the Net. Otherwise we wouldn't have had all the "Anonymous Sources" emailing misunderstood or unapproved plans to ZDnet/MacCentral/etc., and Apple would have been able to get their ducks in a row before someone posted an underresearched piece on the situation on a few dozen websites.

    In the past it was the job of the media to sort through the conflicting reports and produce a coherent and accurate (as possible) account of events; on the Net it seems that the role of news outlets is to publish every single little snippet of potential news (keeping in mind that the relationship of sensationalism-increases-readership-increases-ad-r evenue is even more intense online than it is in print), and it is the readers' collective responsibility to gather as many reports as possible and try to distill a coherent idea of the situation. Unfortunately few of us have the time to do this, so we see one semi-speculative report and take it as the truth.

    Now what does this mean for Slashdot? This particular story is not the only example of several conflicting reports coming in over several days, each one conflicting with the one before. To moderate the news content be requiring confirmation is contrary to the spirit of openness and personal responsibility the Net and Slashdot are built upon, but might it be Slashdot's responsiblity as a major media outlet (which it is) to alert readers if reports are unconfirmed? Lots of questions, not really directly related to Apple or anything, but hopefully relevant to someone somewhere.

  • They would never have done something this stupid a year ago...

    Are you kidding? Only recently have they been emerging from an era of stupidity. This was a flashback to that era, though from the reaction they got I would hope they won't make many more for a while.

  • I hate to break it to ya'all.... (revised info) (Score:3)

    by i_lusiphur ( 54608 ) on Monday October 18, 1999 @06:02AM (#1605344)
    um... This article is somewhat inaccurate.

    "Apple ... will honor all orders for its Power Macintosh G4 computers placed before... October 13, at the originally quoted prices, including those placed with the Company's resellers which were accompanied by a purchase order, or a cash or credit card deposit."

    Apple is ONLY honoring orders that were made via the AppleStore. If you ordered your G4 through a catalog reseller, or CompUSA, or anyone else in the channel (prepaid or not!), well, you're pretty much out of luck. Considering how Apple has flip-flopped over this a few times in the last 48 buisness hours, I can see where the Media was also confused (not that they usually have it right; a post a couple blocks up reviews that well.)

    I guess working here at Apple gives me a different perspective on alot of these issues; I'm far from an Apple-Mac bigot (prior to working here I unfortunately was) and if you ever read profiles, you can see that Apple isn't the only OS that I use (each tool has a different job.) But considering the chip supply problems that Motorola was having (less then 24% yield on their fabs) and the demand for the AGP based G4, I don't really see what else Apple could have done. At least we're learning for our mistakes and going back to the dual-vendor approach (IBM and Motorola) and _trying_ to fix what's gone wrong. Some people look at it like "the top end DVD-RAM model is finally available, yeah!" and I guess that's the glass-is-half-full way to look at it. I just shrug my shoulders and realize that there wasn't much of a choice either way.
  • From what I've seen so far, stories submitted by /. readers are usually quite well-researched.

    IMO this is a debacle which could teach us to be more careful, but it's an exception.
  • A large percentage of the confusion surrounding this situation is due to incessant, incestuous rumor-mongering. It seem that many in the popular computing press find it quicker to build a story around an "anonymous source" rather than wait for valid information from Apple on what their intentions really are.

    Note the main culprit, ZDNet, which reports comments from the primary mac-rumor sites as if it were straight from an inside source. Why should any of us trust them?

    On the web, one can go straight to the official press releases, and not rely on a third party, who may put their own spin on the story.

    And then there's always /., which while it can be occasionally off-the-mark, at least make the attempt to be largely self-correcting. Huzzah!
  • Now that the dust has settled, what are the lessons to be learned?

    1) Apple did the right thing in the end, neatly avoiding the fiasco of upsetting its customers and inviting a horde of lawsuits.

    2) Apple has re-learned a basic economic lesson. You can't renegotiate orders you already accepted.

    3) Higher prices = upset customers. I hope other computer OEMs learn this lesson as well, since news snippets indicate Gateway may be considering raising prices in the aftermath of the DRAM price crisis.

    4) Don't depend on a single supplier. In 3-9 months, IBM will be ready to sell G4 chips, which would be a great improvement for Apple.

    5) Christmas won't be as merry as expected in Cupertino, CA.

    One, there won't be any revenues from those $3,500 G4-500's. Sales of $3,500 G4-450s will probably be lower. Add in CFO Andersen's warning about increasing advertising spendings, and you can smell the gross margins falling.

    Two, rising DRAM prices will put even more pressure on those profit margins.

    Three, Apple is still stuck with supplying the entire backorder of G4s from Motorola alone. For Apple, Q1 of 2000 will depend on how well Motorola delivers.

    And the most important lesson to take away from this debacle? The rumor mill isn't always right, but they do have an impact. Apple could have crushed all these rumors with a press release on Thursday or Friday. They didn't. I'm willing to bet Apple was gauging public reaction over the last 4 days to decide on a course of action.
  • First of all, the Kihei iMacs were never slated for delivery in Q4 '99.

    Secondly, the iBook was originally scheduled for delivery on Sept. 25-26th. 4 days before books close on Q4. Even had the expected 20,000 iBooks been shipped, it would not have made that much of a difference. The iBook is not a Q4 '99 product. It was meant to impact Q1 '00.

    The last major product line, G4, shipped a bit over 64,000 units. That's about 40% of expected shipment, so it's not bad. In short, Apple's supply problems for Q4 '99 wasn't as bad as you'd think.

    But to address your point directly, the pent up demand doesn't invalidate these two points:

    1) Apple will sell fewer of its highest margin machines.

    2) DRAM price hikes will put a crimp in EVERY computer maker's profits

    The analyst estimates were made before the G4 repricing thing hit the newswires. Once they've had the chance to digest the fact that Apple's product mix will be even more tilted toward the low-end, I'm sure the earning estimates will be revised down a couple of cents.

    Finally, the $0.86 per share earnings is only a 60% increase over the reduced earnings estimates. I remind you that Apple was originally projecting $0.76 per share earnings for Q4 '99. The projection of $0.86 isn't nearly as impressive when viewed in perspective.
  • While I think you're right in most cases, this one is special.
    There seem to have been misleading press releases or statements by apple itself.
    In the past, only the relativly few people who have done the actual ordering would have been aflicted by this confusion.
    When a company does something like this nowadays, they feel the wrath a thousend times stronger than just some angry calls for the sales people.
    So, this particular case shows IMO a good development.
  • is this:

    Apple, like allmost all big companies have a habit of breaking promises.

    But the people doing the biggest whining were, for the most part, applauding Apple when they broke past promises.

    Like:
    "The Newton is an important part of our product line" (This one was even said 3 days AFTER the product was cancelled)
    "Any machine made in 1997 will run Rhapsody"
    and older statements like
    "Apple ][ forever"
    "We intend to make and support the Apple /// for five years" (it made 3)
    (If you want to figure out how long this list is, just read some books on Apple's history.)

    Now, when the Newton was dumped, Rhapsody was made a g3 only product, etc...the biggest whiners on this G4 issue were saying that 'Apple was making tough business choices, needed for profitability' WRT the past broken promises.

    So, why don't they say the same when the G4 orderes were cancelled? The cancellation was a simple business decision, made to help Apple's profitability.


  • I think the Slashdotters could implement a little flag that is posted with stories, that denotes whether a story is right from the horses mouth or from somewhere more indirect, like ZDNet or such. Hey Taco, you listening? :) Just an idea. Extrapolations and Suggestions welcome. I might email this to Taco and crew if it seems to make sense.
    kaniff -- Ralph Hart Jr
  • Your points

    1. Apple will sell fewer of it's high margin machines thus lowering margins

    Pure speculation. Most analysts feel that it will have no significant effect. See
    http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19991016/tc/tech_a pple_2.html

    "Wall Street analysts were mostly unfazed, saying they did not expect a big drop in customers or orders."

    2. DRAM prices will hurt margins

    DRAM prices were known at the time these estimates were made.

    3. Finally, the $0.86 per share earnings is only a 60% increase over reduce estimates. Apple was originally projecting $0.76 per share earnings for Q4 '99.

    That is still a nice increase in earnings estimates. My point remains - Apple will have a strong Christmas.
  • It's not journalists who got confused over this one - it's Apple. The day after the downgrade announcement, *very* senior Apple people were phoning up journalists saying that people's orders would be reinstated. Unfortunately, they forgot to tell their PR people this.
  • I'm no Applehead, but I'd cut them a little slack here.

    This is a problem with Motorola that Apple had to deal with. They trusted Motorola in good faith, and Motorola let them down.

    It's a business problem with no good solutions on Apple's part.

    D

    ----
  • The current G4 yields from Motorola do have the potential to freeze when run at 500 MHz. These are the chips that are spec'ed by Motorola to run at 500 MHz. That and along with Motorola's spectacularly bad yields from their fab, seems to make it clear they overpromised and underdelivered. I can't see blaming Apple for this. Their primary blame, prior to this debacle, was to have been overly hopeful.
  • Not true. ZDNet got it right - Apple actually changed its plans.
  • Of course they did. And Motorola delivered according to the schedule it gave Apple. That Apple chose to ignore that in the hope Moto would get higher yields is no ones fault but Apple's.
  • I'd point out the saga of G4 tends to show that a good PR show doesn't always lead to a successful product launch.

    The G4 is a successful product launch, according to pre-order volume. How the 'reconfiguration' will affect this is anyone's guess. The iBook and new iMacs are also doing very well.

    Apple Financial Results show a steady decline in international sales for the last 3 quarters.

    Unfortunately your basis of comparison does not take into account the seasonal nature of the computer business.

    If you do a year to year comparison Apple's international revenues have been up three out of the last four quarters.

    Don't get me wrong, it's an important development. But the market which would benefit from OS X is the one Apple retreated from a long
    time ago.

    Clearly the G4 boxes are not aimed at the consumer market, so it appears that Apple has in fact not retreated from all non-consumer markets. The actual fact of the matter is that Apple does have market niches that are still very performance demanding. For these users Mac OS X is very important.

    The point of the build-to-order model is two-fold.

    1) Minimize inventory to free up working capital.
    2) Minimize delivery time

    Apple has achieved objective 1 at the cost of failing objective #2. Not a successful story, I think.

    Hmmm. I am not sure you can do both if you are revamping the product line as extensively as Apple is. To meet large initial demand you would need to build up large inventories, or have a large manufacturing capacity that would otherwise be idle. It seems to me that you may be asking for something that is impossible.

  • Yea, you're missing the fact that the G4 chip has the potential to freeze when run at 500mhz, and Apple tried to cover it up with saying that Motorola was having "shortages."


    _________
  • heh. no seriously. I have heard they smell. Something about the plastic or something. We're supposed to be getting one in at the end of the week (haha riiiiight..), can anyone confirm this? -j
  • Well, I guess we rock harder then I thought. Apple _is_ going to honor all prepaid orders... that's great... though most people who pre-ordered didn't prepay and I can't see this as more then a couple hundred/few thousand units.

    go apple (can't you hear the enthusiasm!)
  • Has anybody suspected that this confusion and lack of confidence is the latest FUD tactic by Wintel Media Engine?

    Hasdi
  • Apple is ONLY honoring orders that were made via the AppleStore.

    Bzzzzt.. WRONG

    Take a look at the OFFICIAL Apple press release [apple.com]

    It quite clearly states orders from resellers are being honored.

    The fact is that ZDNet reported incorrect crap that confused a lot of people. Most of the Mac sites had it right.
  • The old Apple would have taken 6 weeks to figure this out. Progress!
  • I agree. What a bunch of crap these whiners spout. They're going to hold them to "Apple II forever?" Sheesh. How far up is that corncob? Give the tech sector a break will ya? Or at least let them borrow your Magic 8 Ball (tm). How much of your personal and professional life did you invest in the Newton? Or Rhapsody on your Mac clone? If you say a whole lot, I call you a fool. Get over it. Let that anger go. It's not like Apple's your best friend who promised you that rookie Reggie Jackson. Unless of course your friend has Wall Street to please, a billion in inventory to try to price after a parts shortage, has to wrangle the media, maintain margins to satisfy stockholders, all the while cranking out stuff that the whole sector tries to copy.
  • The crux of the problem is availability. This is a problem that will soon be solved by IBM beefing up their fabs to help out Apple on meeting the 500mhz G4 demand. That information was released last week, with this information following suit shortly thereafter.

    -- no I don't own a Mac, but at least I keep up with the news... and btw: the new iMAC DV systems ARE pretty sweet.
  • Are you kidding? The USB2 story stated "Faster than firewire" Something that was obviously wrong to anyone who knew anything about Firewire. This was NEVER corrected in the story. At least Drudge corrects his stories, slashdot rarely does unless it is a Linux story.
  • As a long time Apple watcher, I'm baffled that during this whole debacle (a period of about 4 working days), Apple's stock has jumped about 15%. I guess people just see earnings statements and figure they don't need to read anything else.
  • No Apple story on Slashdot would be complete without you putting a negative spin on it. Keep up the bad work!

    Actually, no Apple story in any news media would be complete without putting a negative spin on it. Even when the news is good, there always seems to be a little barb like "...the once-beleaguered computer maker..." thrown in for good measure...

  • OK, a few things bother me:

    1. Apple is great because they did the right thing.

    Umm, no, Apple screwed up big-time, which was unbelievable, and then they fixed it.

    2. Slashdot and other news/rumor sites need to get their act together and confirm rumors before posting them.

    Umm, no, Apple actually changed their mind quite a few times and there was no clear definite answer available until this final press release.

    3. It's all Motorola's fault for not having enough G4s ready in time, or for not having the 500MHz chips ready at all.

    Umm, no, Motorola knew that they weren't quite ready for full production, and warned Apple of that, but Apple chose not to listen to them, instead deciding to announce the G4s _way_ too early. Or at least announcing them as shipping. Apple wasn't even ready themselves - thus the 400MHz "Yikes!" model, a hacked-up G3 system with a G4 processor that they could ship immediately. If they'd waited until their hardware was ready for production, Motorola would have been able to produce a few more G4s, and Apple would have had a better product to release. The whole thing is stupid, and with all the good decisions Apple's been making lately, I couldn't believe they blew this one, but obviously they did. Way to go, Steve.
  • Online journalism is no worse than printed journalism. Newspapers as an aggregate present conflicting information all the time. It is not difficult to point out stories from the past few years that collectively show the circus-minded nature of regular media: Clinton/Lewinsky, JonBenet Ramsey, Columbine, ....

    I see no reason to believe that "sensationalism" increases readership online more than offline.

    As far this G4 story, each report on Slashdot was accurate at the time of post, presenting new, more-timely information.

    (Apple cancelled all G4 orders, then Apple reinstated the orders, then Apple contacted its resellers and told them that their G4 orders were cancelled, and, finally, today Apple's head was pulled out of its ass.)

    In many ways online journalism is better. New information does not have to wait for the next day's edition. Readers can voice feedback that is heard in days, even minutes, not weeks. Discussion of the issues can take place without the intervention of an editor.
  • 5) Christmas won't be as merry as expected in Cupertino, CA.

    One, there won't be any revenues from those $3,500 G4-500's. [snip]

    Another poster has noted that most of the revenue (and revenue growth) will come from making deliveries of (and Santa taking new orders for) the new iMacs and iBooks. And I wouldn't be shocked if Apple's price from Motorola on the G3s wasn't made, shall we say, more attractive in light of the G4 debacle.

    Two, rising DRAM prices will put even more pressure on those profit margins.

    Well, that depends a lot on how Apple structures their DRAM supplier contracts in the upcoming months. DRAM prices certainly went up, but when I checked today, the "benchmark" PC100 64 MB SIMM was down to $112 at thechipmerchant.com, where it had been well over $160 in the very recent past.

    Meanwhile, prices on hard disks are still going down just as fast as always.

    King Babar

  • Yes, you are missing something. Apple advertises. Then a customer orders. Before the actual shipment of product, Apple only has a promise that the customer will pay and the customer has a promise that Apple will ship. Apple does not receive money until the product (in this case, the Power Macintosh G4) ships to the customer.

    What Apple screwed up was cancelling the G4 orders. If you had taken the time to read today's press release (which is the topic here), you would realize that Apple has decided to honor all G4 orders that it had previously cancelled. Thus Apple is shipping what it has advertised. (And your yelling about money is not only annoying but wrong.)
  • What I don't understand, i_lusiphur, is why you did not read the Yahoo! article linked to as the 'topic' for this post. It clearly states Apple Computer as the source of this information on the PR-wire. Why would you think that your information would be more accurate than Apple's press-release dated today?

    Btw, your type of posting is why some consider the Internet to be a bad medium for reporting.

    Someone care to moderate his post above. It can only be considered 'insightful' if you like insight into a false reality.
  • ...at least until the next final word.

    Apple is the king of elevator economics.

    Anyone going up?
  • ...at least until the next final word.

    Apple is the king of elevator economics.

    Anyone going up?
  • The crux of the problem is availability. This is a problem that will soon be solved by IBM beefing up their fabs to help out Apple on meeting the 500mhz G4 demand. That information was released last week, with this information following suit shortly thereafter.

    -- no I don't own a Mac, but at least I keep up with the news... and btw: the new iMAC DV systems ARE pretty sweet.
  • I have asked this under the last story too, but I'm really interested in this and nobody answered.
    Perhaps you can enlighten me, didn't apple have contracts with motorola which assure either motorola delivering in time or paying big bucks?
    If not, isn't this very bad management on apples side to make big advertising and take preorders without being sure to be able to deliver?
    I mean, the graphic boards manufacturers are dependend on i.e. nvidia, but I haven't seen such a disaster there. And creative,elsa or others seem to have a much bigger incentive to market and release early because the products are generally very similiar.

  • Re:Pretty obvious (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No Apple story on Slashdot would be complete without you putting a negative spin on it. Keep up the bad work!
  • The same gas-exuded-from new plastic smell that used to hover around discount stores, sometimes even haunting running shoes and dishes for several weeks after they were brought home.

    This was also the case with some (but not all for some reason) Blue and White G3s. I wonder how they affect people with chemical sensitivities.

    Manufacturer advises that the smell will go away after a few days.

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