🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <21915@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, steve@violet.berkeley.edu (Steve Goldfield) writes:
> I just received a faculty/staff/student price list
> dated March 13, 1989. All these products are listed
> as available. Apologies, however, there is a footnote
> saying that students are *not* eligible to purchase
> the NT and NTX. The footnote is much less visible in
> the previous price list but was included there, too.
> 
> Since I am staff and not a student, I sympathize but
> am not affected.
> 
> Steve Goldfield

The latest issue of the Individual Purchase Option price
list (the one for faculty/staff/students) is dated March 7, 1989.
I don't know where this one dated the 13th came from.

> P.S. I also received notice of a very strange Apple
> rebate program running through February and March.
> It's strange in two ways: first that the announcement
> apparently went out at the end of the period of
> eligibility and in some secrecy. You have to make
> a purchase by March 31 to get in on the rebates.

This rebate is called "Apple Pays Half" and was announced on February
22 to all campus reseller sites.  Apple also provided money to each school
for advertisements in the school's paper.  The title is misleading; it is
actually a rebate program.  You are required to buy a CPU and any peripheral
at the same time.  If you fill out the form and send it in by April 15,
you will receive a rebate check in the mail for either the full amount
of the CPU rebate or half of the retail price of the peripheral, whichever is
less.  Since the name is slightly deceiving, we made Apple de-emphasize it on
our ads by putting it in small type near the botton of the ad...

> Second, the rules for the rebate are quite arcane.
> You have to buy a system and a peripheral. Then
> you figure the rebate on the system(s) and the rebate
> on the peripheral(s) and you get the lesser of the
> two. So unless you spend a very large amount of money
> (rebates on single systems are much less than rebates
> on expensive peripherals) such as buying many systems,
> the actual rebate won't be very large. Example, the
> rebate on a Mac II HD 40 is $800, largest system rebate.
> The rebate on an NTX is $3500. But you'd have to buy 5
> Mac IIs to get the $3500.


But look at it this way:  if you are going to buy a Mac II, you will get
a $250 rebate (no hard drive in this puppy).  You buy a Apple modem at the
same time (you have to have a connection to the Usenet world).  You can
end up getting that modem (discounted price minus rebate amount) for somewhere
around $79.  Sounds pretty good to me.

Of course, people who are buying 15 or 20 systems can end up getting $800
LaserWriter IINTs, but that's the way it goes...
 
> I guess you could call this "The Case of the Phantom
> Rebates." I can see John Sculley knocking at your
> door with a large check pretending to be Ed McMahon.

I wouldn't call this "Phantom Rebates".  I know all of the schools here in
Indiana knew about this program by February 24, and the word was out to
students by February 28.

> Steve Goldfield

Besides being for such a limited amount of time, it was a good program.  Maybe
they will think of another promotion in the near future that has a longer term
and broader appeal.  If you did not hear about this program, give your campus
Apple representative, dealer, or reseller a call and throw a fit...

-Michael "I don't speak for Apple" Niehaus


-- 
Michael Niehaus        UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!mithomas
Apple Student Rep      ARPA:  mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu
Ball State University  AppleLink: ST0374 (from UUCP: st0374@applelink.apple.com)