Apple Resellers Sue Apple; Claim Unfair, Unlawful Treatment

from the nepotism dept

When Apple first opened their own stores, there was a lot of grumbling among Apple resellers that the company would clearly favor its own Apple stores over resellers. A few years back, they even complained publicly when there was a shortage of iMacs -- but the Apple stores always seemed well stocked. Now, they've reached a point where a bunch of them have filed a class action suit against Apple, claiming not only that Apple stores get preferential treatment (which another lawsuit has already claimed), but that Apple is "not honoring warranties, misappropriating trade secrets from its resellers... and packaging old kit as new." It's tricky to compete with your own channel, and it appears that Apple has succeeded in angering a lot of their own channel partners with the Apple store strategy. Of course, perhaps this is all part of Apple's plans to do all sales direct, a la Dell.

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