MacMall Sees Growth: First Time In 2 1/2 Years!
[11:16 AM] MacMall's parent company, Creative Computers, Inc. announced that its Mac sales saw growth for the first time in 2 1/2 years. Sales rose 2% over the same period 1 year ago and 31% from last quarter. The company attributed the growth to the iMac introduction, a new Mac software catalog, as well as a "general improvement in Apple product sales." According to Creative Computers' press release:

"The iMac introduction achieved the largest ever dollar volume sales for a computer at launch in Creative's history. Demand for the iMac has been broad, including sales from traditional PC/Wintel customers," stated Dan DeVries. "We are capitalizing on the iMac success by including the iMac in our PC Mall catalogs. We have also introduced a Mac software catalog offering over 1,000 software titles to expand our share of the Mac market and we are receiving enthusiastic response to the recently introduced Mac OS 8.5."

The Mac Observer Spin: Good news in the Mac world is steadily becoming old hat, which in and of itself is one of the best pieces of news there could be. The mail order side of Mac sales is one of the most important elements in that many veteran Mac owners use the catalogs to find Mac products they simply can not find elsewhere. During the last 12 months Creative Computers never backed away from Mac support, but the company had made statements we interpreted to be somewhat pessimistic. Today's announcement was the exact opposite, and this is very good news overall for the Mac market.