Best Buy to sell Macs in 200 U.S. stores

My Local Best Buy (southern New Jersey) sells Macs . Although they are displayed a bit away from other computers (next ailse over, closer to the big screen TV) they are prominently displayed. The sales staff was knowledgeable as well. They knew about parallels and boot camp as well as Photoshop not running natively until spring 2007. They did not have any towers, though. They focused primarily on imacs and mac minis (for obvious reasons). Of course, there is an Apple store about five miles away, so I was curious about the sales...but they would not provide me that information.

The Best Buy by me had them, then stopped. Then got them again, then stopped. Then again....well you get the idea.

I personally think Best Buy is a joke. The people are idiots. Last time I was there looking at Macs, they told me not to get one because I can get a PC with the same chip (Core2Duo) for half the price.

To hell with Best Buy.

To hell with Best Buy. Don't make it easier to buy a Mac!

"To hell with Best Buy. Don't make it easier to buy a Mac!"

It is certainly not easier to buy a Mac from Best Buy when all the teenage clerks are steering people away from Macs with statements like the above poster mentioned. I have personally listened to Best Buy clerks deride the iPod as "not compatible" with Windows and recommend another player. The teenage clerks at Best Buy have never seen a Mac let alone used one. They all got PCs shoved down their throats in grade school. All they know is Windows.

This Best Buy deal will damage Mac sales, not increase them. It's deja-vu all over again.

"To hell with Best Buy. Don't make it easier to buy a Mac!"

Oh please!! Have you ever asked someone at best buy a question? Going by your comment you have NOT. They are NOT helpful, even more so when it comes to mac. Go ahead, goto a Best Buy that sells Macs, and ask the person there questions about it, pretend to be stupid when it comes to Mac. I bet you they will try to sell you a Vista PC. It doesn't matter if there are Mac retailers on every corner. If the person working there doesn't care about them, they will not sell them. The only time they will sell them is if you go there knowing you want one.

I am the President of our local User Group and I have actually had Best Buy employess tell me the Ethernet switch (NetGear 8-Port) I was buying would not work with a Mac. He even tried to take it away and puttit back on the shelf. I usually go there for sale items get what I want and get out.

The whole point to this "partnership" is that the regular blue shirt will NOT be the one selling the product. If I remember correctly, these may even be Apple staff that are selling the product. Since Apple is lending their name to this initiative, they will ensure the staff are representing the product properly.

Yeah, Best Buy people are generally idiots. However, generally people buying from them know they are idiots.

I have to agree with the above posters. I've been using computers forever and know equally about Windows and Macs. I go there on weekends just to mess with the staff all the time because I like wasting their time. I pretend to know nothing and I'll ask simple questions about networking, Apple's OSX being like Vista and iPods and making movies. They are really clueless.

Why do I hate BestBuy? It started off when they decided to charge me $35 for a restore disk that already came with the computer, even when I asked, doesn't the computer already come with one? They said no. The next weekend, I pretended to buy another computer and when the guy finished writing up something for 10 minutes and he asked me the questions, I made them open up the box in front of me and look directly at it, and said, "What is this?" He was speechless. I told him i wasn't going to buy from him because he lied to me. Sorry dude. See ya next weekend.