Imac Price increase

[gigi]

i cant believe that they put the price of the Imacs UP.
they were 2,200 Euro now they are 2,299 Euro (please tell me that i am mistaken)
i was waiting until after Macworld Tokyo to place my order. i didnt want to get caught out if apple released a better model.....
i cannot place the order now ...on principle
how can they justify this ?

[wdw_]

You didn't mis read that.

I was waiting too. But that's supply and demand for you.

[nkuvu]

Even worse. I ordered my iMac, and got an email giving me my price quote. The next day, the order was entered into the system, but the price of RAM had jumped by $150. So guess which price I get to pay? Hint: Not the cheaper one.



And you also have to consider that the demand is way up for the iMacs, as anyone who doesn't live under a rock already knows.

[simX]

I agree, it does suck. But I guess that's life. Sorry, guys.

*** simX fondly remembers the G4 speed dump fiasco.

[fryke]

well... to say 'that's life!' is a bit too easy for me. the demand for iMacs might have been very, very big, but that was when the machine was first presented. that'll diminish over time. and to put the prices up will *not* drive demand up for a consumer machine. if they started selling a Cube G4 with a 1 GHz processor now for 10'000$, the demand might go up, because that'd be a luxury item. but the new imac is plainly too expensive. now more than ever. apple should reintroduce a cheap desktop machine without display. make it a small, sexy tower without much expandability. could even be G3 processors or something like a 667 MHz G4. make it cheap. so cheap in fact that PC users will buy one to hook it up to the VGA display they already have... make it have an AGP slot *only*, no PCI. A name for the machine? Maybe 'The Macintosh'?

- Low profile tower
- 900 MHz G3 or 667 MHz G4 processor (only *one* model, no choice)
- 256 MB RAM (options: one slot only, up to 512 MB)
- GeForce 2MX (options: GeForce 4MX, GeForce 4 Ti)
- 20 GB Harddrive (options: 40, 60, 80 GB)
- CD-ROM drive (switchable by user, normal ATAPI drive)
- Keyboard & Mouse incl.
- OS X only (no OS 9)
- 1 Firewire port (coz of price?)
- 2 USB ports (one keyboard/mouse, one free)

price for base config: 599$

[Aqualung]

Apple missed a golden opportunity to increase their market share with the new iMac. If they could have met the initial demand, then momentum would have carried the iMac sales for some time.

Now Apple has chosen to decrease demand rather than meet it, meaning less market share. An incredibly stupid move on Apple's part. Perhaps in the short term, this increased price for the iMacs will look better on Apple's balance sheet, but for the long haul there is no question that lower iMac prices, and greater sales volume, is the healthiest option for Apple. Even sustaining losses for this quarter would be fine if it meant an increase in market share.

This is so sad because Apple seemed to be doing everything right...they even seemed to have learned from the Cube debacle. It is now clear that Apple learned nothing from the Cube failure.

My question is, what is Apple going to sell to consumers who want a Mac but are unwilling to pay $1400 for a computer? There is an enormous market for computers in the $900-$1200 price range that Apple is totally ignoring! And no, the CRT iMac is not a viable option, it is so outdated with it's tiny 15" CRT (that looks like ass), there is no way for Apple to compete with that thing.

My bet is that Apple's market share drops precipitously this year, and that Apple does not recover from it, ever.

[simX]

Uh, in short, no.

Yes, Apple dropped the ball by not meeting consumer demand and by now increasing the prices. However, it wasn't Apple's CHOICE... as they said, and as has been reported by other places, flat-panel and RAM prices have been rising, so the $100 price increase is probably justified.

Oh, and by the way, at $1299 (when it was introduced), IT WAS IN NO WAY OVERPRICED. For the small footprint, swivel display, etc, it was a steal. It might not be as much of a steal as now, but it still is a GREAT MACHINE, PERIOD!

Apple learned from the cube... the iMac is a great computer at a pretty good price (it was at an AWESOME price at $1299, $1499, and $1799). It's just that there are factors that Apple can't control, which is cost of parts. I'm sorry, but the cube did not get 150000 preorders in the first 3 weeks of it's introduction (and when it wasn't even shipping). That alone shows that the new iMac is not a cube failure.

Apple will not lose market share because of this problem. I'm sure that Apple will probably decrease prices again when prices of flat-panel displays and RAM drops.

[dricci]

The new iMac.
Pay more, Get Less.
Think profit.
"95 Lost. 5 To Go."