In a press release received this morning, the group planning the Apple Expo Protest has changed its tune. It seems that after Apple got wind of the planned protest in a story first reported by The Mac Observer, they contacted the group and initiated a dialog. Instead of a protest, members of the group have a closed-door meeting planned with Apple Europe executives next week.
In an interesting spin, the Protest Group is claiming victory at this turn of events. The Protest Group, now represented by Will Woodhouse, stated, "As pleased as we are that Apple is now open to communicating with itis customers and dealers, we are somewhat saddened that it took such dramatic steps to get to this point."
Here is the entire release from the Protest Group:
The planned protest at the Keynote speech of this weeks Paris Expo by U.K. Macintosh users and dealers, has been cancelled following discussions with Appleis PR department in the U.K..
After the story broke on the 5th of September, Apple U.K. contacted the group stating that it was keen to "open a dialog". The meeting with the head of Apple Europe and other key Apple U.K. executives, which will take place next week at the headquarters of Apple U.K., will hopefully be the beginning of an ongoing relationship with Apple. We are encouraged that the company has taken this first step of listening to their customers here in the U.K.
The planned protest was seen as many to be a bad idea, and it is fair to say that all along we had hoped that the protest would not be needed. As pleased as we are that Apple is now open to communicating with itis customers and dealers, we are somewhat saddened that it took such dramatic steps to get to this point.
After reading the pages and pages of postings on Mac forums, it has become very clear that there is an general unawareness about the problems faced by Mac users outside the U.S. Many posting on forums discussing the European issues have echoed the very attitude we are trying to highlight in Apple. Indeed since our initial email Apple has stated that there will be no webcast of the keynote in Paris because very few people in the U.S. will be up to watch it! This implies that it is not worth doing for Europe and Asia
And so goes the Great Apple Expo 2000 Protest. Stay tuned for more information.