Summary: Apple alienates Apple fans, gets sued in the process

Apple is being accused of starving French reseller of hot stock, according to The Register. There is even a lawsuit as the "iPhone maker hauled into court over throttled supplies... Apple squeezed supplies to a top reseller and used its own retail stores to gain an unfair competitive advantage, claims a French shop chain that is taking Apple to court in Paris."

To quote further, "eBizcuss, the largest reseller in France, said that Apple favoured its own stores over theirs when it shipped out new and hotly demanded trendy tech gear.

"A throttling of Apple deliveries, particularly reduced shipments of the iPad 2 and Macbook Air, cost the store a 30 per cent fall in revenue in quarter three this year, eBizcuss CEO Francois Prudent told Le Figaro (English report). Apple's own retail outlets continued to receive stock. More recently the reseller, which has 16 locations across France, was unable to get any stock of the iPhone 4S.

"This was despite eBizcuss spending $6.5 million bringing its point-of-sale system up to the standard that Apple requested. Apple was also unfairly undercutting their distribution partners on price, alleges Prudent, with Apple offering corporate customers prices lower than they were giving to the reseller shops." (source)

"As one commenter put it," says Homer, "they shouldn't get into bed with a company like Apple then expect not to get shafted. They also shouldn't put so many of their eggs in one basket, such that when they do get shafted, they don't have anything to fall back on. A quick look at their Website (iclg.com), suggests they're pretty much an Apple closed-shop. Idiots. Maybe if they tried something else, like say that line of smartphones that has greater than 50% of the market (what's it called again?) they wouldn't have been shafted and/or could've told Apple to go screw itself.

"The CEO was probably a dazed Apple fanboy. I bet he isn't now though."

In other news, Apple is being sued by users too:

Apple Sued By Users In America

Apple is facing legal trouble at the home turf. Apple users are saying that the company hid the fact that they will be locked into AT&T service and will be blocked access to third-party application downloads.

According to Courthouse News Service, "The four lead plaintiffs say they bought iPhones when they were first released in 2007, but they did not know that Apple had a secret five-year exclusivity agreement with AT&T that would prevent them from switching carriers."

Maybe they should turn to Android/Linux. ⬆