My understanding of Apple's logistics is the same as for Nokia - the factory ship to staging points then once the mass has accrued it is then shipped to distributors. The difference here is that Nokia announced when it was shipped from the factory as opposed to further down the line when shipped from Distributors.
What apple does really well is releases. They hype properly (both by letting the community stew and by hosting events that run really well. Contrast their events with the T-Mobile/Motorola debacle). They give a date, and (for the most part) hit it. There are enough devices in ALL the Apple retail stores to motivate shittons of people (*****s?) to wait in line to buy ON THAT DAY.
I think a lot of what Apple does is bad (same with pretty much every corporation FWIW), but other companies should do their best to follow Apple's lead on how to release a product.
I have spoken to them several times now and they seem adamant that they will NOT be shipping until the 16th for delivery on the 17th.
I hope you are right, or they are just being cautious and will ship early, but my gut feeling is next Tue onwards
What apple does really well is releases. They hype properly (both by letting the community stew and by hosting events that run really well. Contrast their events with the T-Mobile/Motorola debacle). They give a date, and (for the most part) hit it. There are enough devices in ALL the Apple retail stores to motivate shittons of people (*****s?) to wait in line to buy ON THAT DAY.
I think a lot of what Apple does is bad (same with pretty much every corporation FWIW), but other companies should do their best to follow Apple's lead on how to release a product.
I think that's roughly in line with what I said?
I agree regarding the marketing and release - Apple have always been a triumph of marketing (some might say at the expense of engineering but that is another debate).
The difference though I suspect is that Apple were going for mainstream and Nokia with Maemo apparently weren't but it would have been nice to have had a more polished released regardless.
I work for a major electronic company, and just checked our distribution channel, Ingram Micro, Tech Data etc, all of them have ETA dates of 11-13-09 here in the states. Looks like they're arriving to distribution channels on Friday then shipping out from there to the end-users....what an exciting time!
I'm interested in which companies you are familiar with that are able to get tens of thousands of devices out of the door the first day the shipping starts.
What immediately springs to mind regarding a successful launch is Apple, and the launch of the iPhone 3G here in Sweden. No pre-orders were possible, but it was available the exact minute Telia and Apple said it would be. Telia's servers went on their knees as expected due to the demand, but I got one from the first batch.
The iPhone 3G was, with the first version of the OS, the buggiest piece of technology I've ever used (before or since). But that is a whole other thing!
I guess I misread your post. It seemed like you were suggesting that they waited for critical mass to accrue (whenever that happens). I'm suggesting that they set a date, and pump out as many devices as they can to retailers before and up to that date. See the logical difference that I read? Either way, we're on a similar page
