QUOTE
It's now taking pre-orders, which will arrive on Aug. 28
By Gregg Keizer
August 24, 2009 10:23 AM ET
Computerworld - As had been rumored, Apple will launch Snow Leopard, its newest operating system, on Friday, the company said today.
The company plans to start selling Snow Leopard in its retail stores Aug. 28, and is now taking pre-orders on its Web site. Copies ordered today will arrive Friday. "Snow Leopard builds on our most successful operating system ever and we're happy to get it to users earlier than expected," Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, said in a statement Monday.
When it flaunted Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, in early June and set its price at $29, Apple said the upgrade would go on sale sometime in September. Recently, however, accumulating clues -- including a glitch on Apple's own Web site -- pointed to an early release.
Analysts have projected that Apple will sell between 2.5 and 3 million copies of Snow Leopard in the quarter that ends Sept. 30, although the impact to Apple's bottom line will be markedly less than 2007's Leopard, which was priced at $129 for a single license.
In June, Apple said it reduced the price for Snow Leopard because it wanted all its users to move up to the new OS. "Leopard was $129 but we want all Leopard users to upgrade to Snow Leopard, so we're pricing it at $29," said Craig Federighi, the vice president of Mac OS engineering, during a presentation at the company's annual developer's conference on June 8.
Apple has marketed Snow Leopard as a stability and performance upgrade, rather than an OS packed with easy-to-see changes. Snow Leopard runs several Apple-provided applications faster, the company claimed, including Mail, which loads messages twice as fast, and Time Machine, the integrated backup and restore program, which does its initial backup 80% faster.
By Gregg Keizer
August 24, 2009 10:23 AM ET
Computerworld - As had been rumored, Apple will launch Snow Leopard, its newest operating system, on Friday, the company said today.
The company plans to start selling Snow Leopard in its retail stores Aug. 28, and is now taking pre-orders on its Web site. Copies ordered today will arrive Friday. "Snow Leopard builds on our most successful operating system ever and we're happy to get it to users earlier than expected," Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, said in a statement Monday.
When it flaunted Mac OS X 10.6, aka Snow Leopard, in early June and set its price at $29, Apple said the upgrade would go on sale sometime in September. Recently, however, accumulating clues -- including a glitch on Apple's own Web site -- pointed to an early release.
Analysts have projected that Apple will sell between 2.5 and 3 million copies of Snow Leopard in the quarter that ends Sept. 30, although the impact to Apple's bottom line will be markedly less than 2007's Leopard, which was priced at $129 for a single license.
In June, Apple said it reduced the price for Snow Leopard because it wanted all its users to move up to the new OS. "Leopard was $129 but we want all Leopard users to upgrade to Snow Leopard, so we're pricing it at $29," said Craig Federighi, the vice president of Mac OS engineering, during a presentation at the company's annual developer's conference on June 8.
Apple has marketed Snow Leopard as a stability and performance upgrade, rather than an OS packed with easy-to-see changes. Snow Leopard runs several Apple-provided applications faster, the company claimed, including Mail, which loads messages twice as fast, and Time Machine, the integrated backup and restore program, which does its initial backup 80% faster.
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http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/913..._on_sale_Friday