Around September 1998 In MacUser or MacWorld (I think) I remember reading an article about the Dixons Group eg. PC World, Currys, and of course Dixons itself, and it said something along the lines of how the Dixons Group were committed to the Mac and that it was planning on putting the iMac in their PC World stores and larger stores of Dixons.
If anyone read my last article on coloured iMacs they would know that I am looking to upgrade my Mac to a new iMac, anyway in our search "because as it happens the grape iMac is hard to get hold of and out of the ten mail order companies we phoned there were only 16 iMacs in total available"
 
However we went into our local PC World and enquired if they had any in stock. They phoned all their branches and most only had the display model left so on the off chance "remembering the article in MacUser" we went into Dixons and asked if they had any Grape iMacs in stock.
"iMACS?" she said. " I dont know. You'll have to talk to our computer sales assistant." She pointed to a short, stout, dark haired man at the other end of the shop. So we went and asked the sales assistant, to which the reply was, " Just out of interest can I ask who told you that we sell iMacs?" We explained about the article that we had read, and that we thought it wouldn't hurt to ask. Anyway with that he turned to his computer, waited a bit, then said, "Well we have 64 iMacs in stock down at the warehouse." We asked how come they had so many in stock as everywhere else it seemed that you'd be lucky to find one. "Well," he said, "the iMac's are not that good really as Apple decided to leave out the 3D Graphics Card at the last minute." But he could still get us one at 4:00pm the following day at the nice rounded price of £999 excluding delivery. I'm not sure whether that price was with or without VAT. Nevertheless it's still an incredibly high price, even PC World was cheaper at £915 including VAT.
Needless to say we will be getting our iMac through one of the Mail order companies which has one in stock on the day we are ready to purchase. Unfortunately PC World do not think they will be getting any in stock for the foreseeable future.
