Update on The Apple Store December 26, 1998 Update of The Apple Store's Christmas Vacation, December 24, 1998. I was looking around to see if there were any working entrances into the store and I found a page for The Apple Store for Education. The institution page is less festive and details what's happening during the closure: "The Apple Store is closed for the remainder of the year while we perform upgrades and improvements to our order management and processing systems."

A News.Com story from December 14, 1998 mentions Apple is introducing a new production control system before the launch of the new Power Macintosh desktops in January. Also, the Apple Store UK and Apple Store Sweden both seem to have remained open during the closure of the US Apple Store. Don Crabb on December 8 forecast the Apple Store closure with The Mac Manager: Is Apple on Drugs? at MacCentral Online. He mentions a new system based on SAP's R3 software to "...retire the aging and creaking plumbing behind its online ordering Web site."