Apple slashes server and Power Mac prices
Apple has cut the price of its servers by £700 and its top of the range G4 Power Macs by up to £650 in order to clear an inventory stockpile and make way for new product releases at next week's MacWorld show.
Apple has cut the price of its servers by £700 and its top of the range G4 Power Macs by up to £650 in order to clear an inventory stockpile and make way for new product releases at next week's MacWorld show.
The company, which also issued lower than expected profit warnings for its first quarter ending 30 December 2000, is blaming the price cuts and profit warnings on low PC sales in October and November last year.
Sales of the machines have failed to match Apple's expectations to date, but retailers have reported they have already seen an increase following the price cuts.
Garett Doyle, managing director of Cambridge-based Apple reseller Macline, said: "The price cuts are brilliant. Since it's happened we have seen an increase in volume of unit sales of 30 per cent, and price cuts tend not to hit our margins."
Doyle added that at MacWorld next week in San Francisco he expects the vendor to announce its new 'latest and greatest' products and cited this as one of the reasons for the price cuts.
"We are expecting significant product announcements next week, and what with the extra inventory that most vendors seem to have at this time of year, as a reseller it's the best time in our sales cycle."
Andy Brown, senior analyst at IDC, said that at this time of year a lot of vendors decrease prices: "At the end of the year vendors sometimes stuff the channel to get rid of their inventory stocks.
"There have been fears that the US market is not as buoyant as everyone had thought, and expectations of a US economic slowdown, but this shouldn't affect Europe's markets too much."
He added that the vendor could be attempting to push the Office 2001 products, refocus its strengths and become less 'product-centric'.
Additional reporting by Ian Lynch, vnunet.com
Apple's new UK prices