ROCKEFELLER

Apple is one of the biggest suppliers of computer software, iPhones, iPod, iPad, consumer electronics, computers etc. The company is well known for its web browser Safari, and a mobile operating system iOS. It has about 500 stores worldwide and also has an online store. However, Chinese authorities have discovered another 22 fake Apple stores in the city of Kunming, situated in southwest of China.

The news of fake Apple stores in Kunming arose last month when a visitor of the city found three such fake stores during his visit and wrote on a blog concerning about the stores where the salesman were certain that they were working for the real Apple company. After that, about 300 shops in Kunming underwent investigation in July.

According to the report of the China Daily on Thursday, the Administration for Industry and Commerce of China ordered the fake stores to stop the illegal use of Apple’s logo when the Apple China alleged the stores for violating copyright rules and for an unfair competition. The crackdown started earlier this month and the stores were ordered to stop using the logo by August 10.

The agency said that it would open a monitoring services and a complaint hotline in order to prevent further violations. But, it has not yet been known that whether the stores were selling the genuine Apple’s products or smuggled models.

“Chinese law protects trademarks and prohibits companies from copying the ‘look and feel’ of other companies’ stores. But enforcement is spotty, and the United States and other Western countries have often complained China is woefully behind in its effort to stamp out intellectual property (IP) theft,” Reuters on its report said.

In China Apple’s products are high on demands from consumers. But, Apple has only four official stores in China: two in Beijing and two in Shanghai. On the other hand China is the second largest market for downloads from Apple’s App stores.  Based on the huge demand on the product of Apple in China, it is the right time for Apple to increase its official stores and business centers in China.

(rockefellernews/rd)

The release if the ipad 2 from Apple inc has taken the media and the consumers by storm when it was officially released on march 11. Due to the popularity of its predecessor, the ipad, millions of people will be rushing to the nearest Apple stores to purchase the product at any price available. This may seem to come of as good news to Apple, but it does not necessarily imply to the consumers as well because of an incident that took place on the sunlitun commercial store in Bejiing on Sunday May 8th where four people were injured.

This incident was a violent riot by a group of disgruntled customers who apparently had a altercation with a foreign Apple employee. Since a lot of people were in the mood for buying an Ipad 2 from this particular store, there was a huge crowd of more than two thousand people, which means that there was a lot of line breaking and shoving. To make matters worse, one non Chinese Apple employee, started getting harsh with the crowd and even began hitting people who would even minutely break the line. The customers obviously lost their temper and retaliated by attacking this employee as he was heading back to the store. What happens when a few people start fighting in a large crowd, everyone start fighting. This small disagreement with the Apple store employee caused a savage riot where people started toppling tables and breaking glasses. This eventually led 4 people to be injured gravely enough to remain in the hospital for a long time.

This was clearly the fault of the people for rioting but the apple employee also deserves some blame. Granted ,Apple is losing millions in sales due to large scale hording and counterfeiting that happen in the country but there are a number of INCIDENTS where Apple has been accused of malpractices and domineering towards the society as a whole. In this Apple vs people case though, you cannot assign blame to one specific person as both the customer and employee of the store will try to vindicate their acts.

(rockefellernews/yk)