Tomorrow night Apple Computer Inc. will rollout the company’s new and improved operating system, known to most users as Jaguar. Apple yesterday announced plans to hold Mac OS X 10.2 launch events at all 35 of the company’s retail locations and company officials said this is an event customers won’t want to miss.
Dubbed ‘100 minutes to Jaguar,’ the events will start at precisely 10:20 pm and run until midnight. Apple will offer a free gift with the purchase of 10.2, theater demos and a chance to win a Mac, as well as some surprises for people attending the events that the company wouldn’t elaborate on.
“We are creating an great event,” Ron Johnson, Apple’s senior vice president of retail, told MacCentral. “When people talk about it the next day I can guarantee everybody that didn’t come will regret not being there. This is 100 minutes you won’t want to miss.”
Staff at the Apple retail locations have been trained on Jaguar to help answer customer questions and the theatres, located in every Apple Store, will be demonstrating Mac OS X 10.2 all night. Every computer in the stores will be equipped with Jaguar, so customers can give it a try before buying — in most locations that’s approximately 45 computers, while the bigger stores like SoHo have 75 computers.
Mac users may not be the only people attending the Jaguar launch events this weekend, an increased number of “Switchers” that have be coming to the stores may also be in attendance. Apple said that all stores are seeing increased interest from Windows users in the company’s hardware and software products.
“Every store has had substantial increases in the quantity and quality of traffic with people who walk in and say, ‘I want to switch.’ Our in-store representatives at CompUSA are saying the same thing — we are convinced that the campaign is working,” said Johnson.
Since the opening of the first retail store, Apple has made subtle changes to the layout and design of each location to better fit the needs of its customers. The launch of the Switchers campaign has given Apple’s retail division even more to think about in how to attract and provide service to Windows users.
“We have changed our stores to address their [Switchers] concerns and we have trained our people to be more knowledgeable about issues that Switchers care about,” said Johnson. “We’ve done a lot of work to be able to respond to these people when they come in our store.”