Editorial -- More on the CompUSA/Apple Retail Deal

Editorial -- More on the CompUSA/Apple Retail Deal: I had another chance to visit the local CompUSA (Tyson's Corner, VA) over the weekend (Saturday) when MicroCenter was out of a supply item that I needed (CompUSA was out too) and I wanted to look at the cheap scanners on sale ($99!). The Mac section was cleaned/straightened up since my visit a few days before. The section was still full of boxes but there were at least a half dozen or so 6500/250's, along with Apple monitors and Color Stylewriter 4100's. CompUSA had a $1,999 deal on the bundle of the three items with the faster CD's (24x) and modems (56K) with a free VCR thrown in--not bad. They still had only the 6500/225 and 6500/300 on display but, unlike my visit last week, both were neatly arranged, on and open to the desktop. The Apple System Profiler that had been ridiculously serving as signage was replaced with normal signage sitting by the computers. Still no PowerBooks in the laptop section. Still no employees were in the Mac section and none "visited" during the 15 minutes that I was there despite the obvious enthusiasm of a mother and her two sons who began using the computers after I fiddled with them. There were a couple of women in the hardware section that looked like company auditors of some sort taking notes on clipboards and smiling at shoppers but neither even glanced toward the Mac section. When I left, the mother and sons were still using the Macs and no employee had approached them. Pretty pathetic--I hope Apple is not spending, or at least has not yet spent, any money on this "deal."