The delays in the 'Great PowerBook Drought of 1999' are well known. Orders placed at some mail-order houses on the day of the PowerBook's introduction on May 10th have gone unfulfilled, over a month later. We inch closer to a month later than Steve Jobs' promised May 20th ship date. But you need a Lombard now, at any cost, the situation seems hopeless...how are you going to pull this off?

Don't visit any websites to find availability. Pick up the phone. Call your local independent Apple dealer, call your local CompUSA, or the regional chains like Fry's and ComputerWare. If you're a student, call your college's bookstore. The fact of the matter is, these types of places are getting stock way before large mail-order houses. Apple is allocating stock first to itself, then these types of places, and only then to mail-order. To read the full story on why this is a change in policy for Apple, read this article.

We've gotten report after report like the following that local resellers have the best stock:

I just bought a 333 Lombard at the Fry's in Fountain Valley, CA, they have one left, the Fry's in Anaheim also had one left. I saw your post about stock at the Fry's in San Diego, so I called local stores, it worked, thanks.

So what's the downside to this? First, you pay full price on the PowerBook, $2499 for the 333 MHz and $3499 for the 400 MHz model. Then you must pay tax on the purchase. Of course, you can get the PowerBook for more than $300 dollars cheaper at Outpost.com, but the big tradeoff here is when you get your PowerBook. For example, Outpost.com has over 300 backorders for each model of Lombard, meaning even if you order now from them, you'll be that far back on their backorder list, which is fulfilled in a first-come, first-served manner. Considering that the current amount Apple is sending to Outpost and the like is 3 or 4 units a day, this could be a long wait.

This isn't all doom and gloom however. Apple has been known to ship 400 units a day of a product to a reseller and wipe out their backorders. So before you spend the extra 300 dollars to buy locally, call around to check for any miracles. However, at this point, your best bet to get a PowerBook immediately is to call your local sellers.



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Written/Edited/Published by Doug B. Landry
Logo by Jon Iverson
Apple, Mac, Macintosh, Mac OS,The Apple Store, and Powerbook are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.
©1998 Doug B. Landry. All rights reserved. All or part may not be reproduced or distributed without prior consent.
Coded on a Apple Macintosh Powerbook G3 Series from Baton Rouge, LA

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