Apple is moving fast to fix public relations, honoring customers who prepaid for new Power Mac G4 computers prior to Oct. 13 and at the originally-quoted prices.
CNET is reporting that Steve Jobs himself is leading the repair crew. "We clearly dropped the ball in this instance," Jobs says in a statement. "We apologize to our customers for upsetting and disappointing them during this past week. Our actions today will hopefully set things right."
The company says it will honor all pre-orders including those placed with authorized re-sellers. Last week, Apple announced during a quarterly earnings reports it would have to ship slower computers than customers had ordered at the same price to meet demand. Customers fumed at the plan.
But two days after the original announcement, CNET says, Apple partially reversed the decision for customers ordering directly from the company - which left Apple resellers on the spot to tell customers why their systems' prices were going up.
Now, though, only those ordering after last week's announcement will be hit by the G4 system price hike. CNET says customers can order systems with G4 chips running 350, 400, and 450 MHz, priced $1,599-$3,499. Financial analyst Lou Mazzuchelli of Gerard Klauer Mattison tells CNET Apple is trying to dig itself out of "something they never should have gotten into in the first place.
"The best thing about the [G4] decision," he continues, "is that they rescinded it relatively quickly," with a "negligible" financial impact. He thinks, moreover, that iMac sales will be enough to lift Apple profits in the next quarter.
CNET says Apple customers who ordered the 400-MHz and 450-MHz models will receive their Power Mac G4 systems as ordered at the originally quoted prices, while those who ordered the 500-MHz model - which won't be available until early next year - can change order a 450-MHz model at its originally-quoted price.
The only problem Apple now has, CNET says, is getting products to customers, with the company scrambling to fill about $700 million worth of back orders - a large part of which includes iBook notebooks. A normal quarter shows Apple with between $100 and $200 million in back orders.
