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I don't like shopping -- not even when it's for a new computer. But a couple of months back, I let a good friend talk me into helping her switch from an aging PC to a Mac. "After all," she coaxed, "you're the expert." "Ha," I quipped, "you should read some of my so-called fan mail."
Such cynicism failed to scare off my friend, and I soon found myself with her at a CompUSA in Marietta, Ga. CompUSA is a national chain of computer stores that announced with much fanfare two years ago that it would devote significant floor space in every store to promote Apple products.
If Marietta is any example, CompUSA doesn't understand the meaning of the word "promote." I found the Apple display hidden in a back corner of the store, as if the manager were afraid someone might actually see it. Turned out he was. Just one clerk, no older than 30, manned the Apple area. He immediately tried to talk my friend out of buying a Mac. It's history, he told us. There's no software for it. Stick to PCs, he confided. After all, everyone uses them.
HORROR STORIES. Needless to say, I was flabbergasted. But my experience was far from unique. From reader mail and bulletin boards, I've garnered plenty of tales of horror -- from products without pricing to Macs lying upended on the floor. One writer to a bulletin board said his local dealer in Toledo would only let customers see a Mac by appointment.
No wonder Apple is apparently considering opening up its own retail stores, as reported in the San Jose Mercury and Web site ZDNet. Each publication quotes sources within the company as saying that Apple has leased retail space in Palo Alto, Calif., hometown of CEO Steve Jobs, and on Chicago's Magnificent Mile. Apple won't comment on the reports. But neither has it denied them.
News that Apple might sell its own computers in stores (it already does so online) set Mac dealers nationwide a-hootin' and a-hollerin', as we say down here in the South. "Apple is trying to steal our customers," they complained. "Apple promised it would never compete against us. Apple doesn't understand the retail business, etc., etc."
LAUNCHING PLATFORM. Oh please. Sony and Nike both run their own lavish stores that sell and promote their products. (Sony even has a museum in New York City.) If anything, the Sony and Nike stores forced their retailers to sharpen up -- and it certainly looks as though Mac retailers could use a dose of the same medicine. But I don't think Apple's pending foray into retail is about taking on its dealer network.
That judgment is not based on any inside dope from the company -- but rather on my hunch that Apple needs a premier platform next year to herald promising but very risky new products. Topping that list is OS X, an operating system that will change not only the look and feel of the Mac but how it works as well. You can't leave promotion of something this big to a retailer who won't even put your current products on display.
So let's play make-believe for a moment. Imagine an Apple-branded store -- bright, inviting, and comfortable, with running demonstrations of OS X on the latest Macs. Not only could you see OS X in action but you could also play with it to your heart's content. Better yet, there would be salespeople who could actually explain what OS X does and how it differs from Apple's current operating system. That, my friends, is the thrust behind the idea of a handful of Apple stores in big cities.
It's not a novel idea. Apple would be stealing a page from the successful playbook of made-to-order computer maker Gateway and its heifer-motif stores. Sure, people buy a lot of computers now from Gateway's outlets. But the main purpose of these brightly lit, comfortable stores is to put people at ease with Gateway products.
If it worked for Gateway, why not for Apple too?
Haddad, Atlanta-based correspondent for Business Week, is a long-time Apple Computer buff. Follow his weekly Byte of the Apple column, only on BW Online Edited by Thane Peterson
Copyright 2000, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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