Offer A 10.2 (Jaguar) Upgrade Fee

On Wednesday, July 17, 2002, you spoke about Mac OS v10.2 in your keynote address at Macworld New York. The public and technology media was informed shortly thereafter that Apple would not be offering an upgrade price for existing users of the Mac OS X operating system. By our signatures below, we express our anger and outrage at this decision.

Many of us agree that some form of upgrade fee is warranted for to recompense Apple for time and money spent developing of the many new technologies packaged into 10.2. Few here believe it should be free. But we feel that by charging full price, you are doing great damage not only to your customers but to your own company. We point out the following problems:

* People feel the price differential is unfair. Upgrading from 9.x directly to Jaguar will cost a user $130. Someone who upgraded from 9.x to 10.0.x to 10.1.x, and now wants to upgrade to Jaguar, could end up spending well over $280. Existing OS X users, by their use of the OS, helped Apple work out bugs and discover which features had the highest demand. Why should you penalize them for their loyalty and "early adoption" mindset, which was a clear asset to you?

* Many of us wonder why you were not advised this could be a very unprofitable move. The psychological impact of asking former users to pay full price for an operating system they have already bought will be enough to hurt Jaguar sales a great deal. We respectfully suggest Apple would see greater economic profit by offering an upgrade fee, because resulting sales in that area will no doubt be more brisk than those from selling 10.2 at full price alone. In other words, a moderate discount for existing users could vastly increase the number of sales.

* One of the things that people admire about Apple is its corporate philosophy and the sense of goodwill it can generate amidst existing users. As you no doubt know, Mac pundits often refer to this as your "Reality Distortion Field." But by announcing both a decision to convert iTools to a $100-per-year pay service and a decision to offer no upgrade fee for Jaguar in one single keynote, you do much to offend your existing user base, to taint and damage their perception of Apple.

* Similarly, by charging full price for 10.2, you cause all Apple customers to become concerned about a possible future lack of upgrade fees. This causes an Apple user to decide whether future loyalty to the Apple brand will be prohibitively expensive, as they grow concerned about the sum cost of future upgrades.

By our signatures below, we express our great disagreement with your decision regarding no upgrading pricing. We respectfully ask you to offer an upgrade fee to Jaguar for existing Mac OS X users.

In the event that you do not, we voice:

* That many of us will not purchase Jaguar at all.

* That our loyalty towards Apple, especially as it relates to for future hardware and software purchases, will be severely damaged and/or completely severed. Many of us may even "defect" to other platforms for future purchases.

We suggest that the damage to your customers' goodwill could hurt Apple far, far more in the long run than the slight difference in profits that the creation of an upgrade fee would cause.

Mr. Jobs, offer an affordable Jaguar upgrade fee to existing Mac OS X users.

Thank you for your time.