| | Is there a precedent for this type of free upgrade before the roll-out, by any computer company? No extra charge -- even though I opted for 2.16GHz -- which shocks me!
If you believe the conspiracy theory guys who say Apple originally planned to roll out the Intel Macs in January and not summer, then this is all part of the Master Plan. It's just another ploy to get free press.
On the other hand, it's quite possible that Apple is simply following a philosophy of underpromise, overdeliver. The company can't continue to surpass the goals quarter after quarter if the goal keeps moving higher and beyond reach. Sometimes, the goals get too astonomically high, that even if they meet them, the stock gets plummeted because it didn't exceed them. Apple just reset the bar lower with their last quarter announcement, so it's a realistic goal which they can again meet or exceed (versus the original goal which was a stretch).
In this case, they probably figured that their only competitors were in the PC business and given their supply of chips, raising prices would only send buyers to the PC/windows side. By keeping prices fixed, they get rid of their current supply and build up a backlog which by then , the prices of their chips should decline, keeping their margins. |
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