OPINION • JANUARY 3, 2001
Talkin' Smack: Slash and Churn
Do Apple's price cuts mean new goodies at Macworld?

by David Nagel
Executive Producer
dnagel@digitalmedianet.com

So here I am, getting all geared up for Macworld, taking advantage of the holiday excuse for not getting any work done, when all of a sudden Apple goes and slashes prices on all of its good stuff (i.e., not iMacs or iBooks). So now I have to write a column—and on a Wednesday no less! (I was really counting on a little "Dave time" this week, but, you know, the public must be served ... and all that junk.)

"Price cuts?" you query. "I knew nothing of any price cuts."

Well, that's because ol' Dave was too busy yesterday writing a bunch of very important content for his other site to notice this little fact until late in the afternoon. This little piece of ephemera not withstanding, it is a fact: The floor has fallen out beneath the mighty Mac desktop and laptop pricing machine.

Before we analyze, let's look at the new prices. The single-processor G4 400 MHz model with gigabit Ethernet and all the rest of the goodies drops to $1,299. That's the same price to which the non-gigabit model dropped just a couple months ago. The dual-processor G4 450 MHz model falls to $1,999. And the dual-processor 500 MHz model drops to $2,399 with DVD-ROM or $2,499 with DVD-RAM. (Since this is an opinion piece, here's a little tip: Skip the DVD-RAM. You can't do anything with it anyway. Just wait for a DVD-R or DVD+RW drive.)

But that's not all. For those of you less inclined toward the tower models, there have also been reductions on PowerBooks and Cubes. The 400 MHz and 500 MHz G3 PowerBooks are now $1,999 and $2,199, respectively, while the 450 MHz G4 Cube drops to $1,499.

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