"Treacherous" Apple has wormwood roots

IT'S COME TO our attention that a group of Apple resellers is suing its own supplier alleging that Apple has been cooking a rather rotten pie. According to the details of the case, Cupertino is accused of overbilling, offering selective discounts on its website that resellers weren't qualified for, poaching customers, refusing to honor warranty repair work done by their resellers, and overcharging dealerships for parts.

My. Anyone else sense a bit of pent-up hostility here?

Rumours of bad blood between Apple and its dealers go back a long way, but the situation generally wasn't portrayed as quite this bad. Cupertino apparently has been caught telling buyers that Mac dealerships in an area weren't "authorized" and steering them towards its own (competing) Apple stores, even going so far as to send mailings or phone calls directly targeted at registered buyers from such outlets. Obviously as the vendor on which the resellers depend, the company has access to quite a bit of information.

It's hard not to feel some sympathy for the small-business/retail computer market in general, as such businesses have seen their income slashed by cut-rate deals and major OEM agreements with major warehouse suppliers like Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA. White-box builders still survive, of course, but the market is definitely leaner than it once was. Now take that situation and imagine being an Apple dealer where 95% of computer owners are suddenly ineligible to walk in your door for the day-to-day purchases that make store owners much of their money.

Furthermore, imagine you were one of the dealers that'd stuck by Apple through the company's descent before Steve returned to lead us into Jobbsian paradise. Such a display of loyalty when other (more lucrative) opportunities existed literally right outside the door should be rewarded by Apple, not undercut. Any Apple dealer could likely boost their business significantly by hanging a sign on the door advertising Dell, Gateway, HP, and built-to-order systems, but the fact that such vendors remain Apple-oriented in a testament to the enduring power of the platform.

Unfortunately it's a power that Apple doesn't seem to know how to harness. Apple's design teams are great, but their understanding of the business market or how to treat their own team members (which is, after all, what a reseller is) both seem destined to constantly trip the company up. Poaching customers from your own vendors?

Apple vendors have obviously taken a lot of abuse from the PC market in the past decade; asking them to put up with their market being assaulted by their own supplier is a bit much. Apple claims not to be competing against its vendors, but really, would we expect them to say anything else? Those Apple stores out there have to be filled with someone's customers after all, and somehow I doubt the buyers are all first-time visitors.

The fact that the situation has disintegrated to the level of lawsuits is very shameful for a company that prides itself on being "Something Different." Looks like Apple is ready to join the rest of the computer industry in the endless cycles of litigation that plague Silicon Valley. µ