Maybe Shay should post the article explaining the move. After reading
it myself I can understand the rationale employed by Apple.
Indeed if they didn't employ it, there was the likelihood their stock
would have been dumped big time. It was a question of the company
surviving or upsetting customers. A massive sell-off of the company's
stock (and the associated plummeting stock price) is the last thing
Apple needs .... if this happened it could have likely been the
beginning of the end. I know it sounds ridiculous that it is more
important to please the stock market than your customer base, but in
terms of the viability of companies like Apple, this is very true (in
the US at least!).
You'll remember that Apple did well under the Pepsi man (at least
initially) .... he kept the stock market happy even though the
innovation and product offerings went severely downhill.
The decision by Apple is simply a corporate reality.
On Friday, August 2, 2002, at 10:32 AM, Neil Houghton wrote:
And the rest of us will leave, including us here in GMUG land who had
a very nice little website running, supporting Apple products. so be
it. Valé iTools and trust in Apple.
Reg
Well, given that the other option is Apple's financial status going
down the tubes, and the company with it, it has to make these
decisions.
I'd rather have the Apple that I really haven't been able to trust
for the past decade or so (and only loosely understand) than no Apple
at all. Sad, but then that's what economic rationalism gets you.
Have fun,
Shay
I find it hard to believe that Apple's financial survival depends on
charging for iTools. If it continues to provide the service but charges
and
then most of the punters spit the dummy and don't sign up for the
service -
it still incurs the costs of providing the service, it doesn't bring in
much
revenue from it and it suffers the intangible (but real in terms of
future
revenue) cost of loss of customer loyalty. It doesn't sound like good
business to me!
Just my 2c worth.
Neil
Keith Palmer
Zytech Marketing Pty Ltd
PO Box 342 Bunbury 6231
Phone: 0419927101 Fax: 0897915900
the online FireWire data storage store -
http://www.zytech.com.au/
