The launch of the Apple Watch is not over. . . nor has it been "mismanaged" as you and the article claim. How do you manage a runaway train when the demand is far greater than expected. No one knows at this point whether Apple has "mismanaged" the roll-out or not. No other company in the world has demand for its products like Apple's product demand. . . and no other company knows how to handle the demand like Apple. Apple has learned a lot about how to handle demand and one of the ways they do that is exactly what you are seeing, allow customer pre-orders on-line to avoid huge demand on a single day at their retail stores.
It is equally amusing that someone such as article author Wayne Williams, who has never, ever managed a product roll out, or probably even a Lemonade stand, is criticizing a company that has managed the product rollouts numerous times to overwhelming product demand and concluding they are making a brand damaging botch of the job this time. . . without waiting for them to actually DO the product roll out. You can add your name to that amusement, too.
I find it amusing that you, a person who is not waiting for an Apple Watch to be delivered, is getting your panties in a wad because there is some delay in when other people are going to be able to get theirs because of the overwhelming demand. Everyone who ordered an Apple Watch did so knowing approximately when it would be delivered. They had the option to back out before pushing the ORDER BUTTON. There is no one who is being told after the fact their Apple Watch delivery is being delayed later than expected.
To quote you: "Sheesh."
By the way, it is very easy to predict demand and manage accordingly. Look at what Vegas.com did with the “online gambling” product. They had no idea whether or not there would be demand for the product. So, rather than build the product then scale it to fit demand, they did something called “404 testing.” Specifically, that was to place an “online gambling” link on their site. When users clicked it, they got a “Coming Soon” page with an signup form for more information.
Two things were measured from this test: impulse interest (they clicked the link) and high intent interest (they filled out the form).
The requisite work to launch a 404 test and extrapolate demand is actually pretty low. Apple announced the watch how long ago? There has been plenty of time to use simple techniques to measure potential demand.
This is a business miss.
Finally, my panties are not in a wad. I am simply indicating what I believe they could have done better to manage this product roll out. In some cases, I was echoing sentiments read elsewhere and indicated such. I acknowledged they are normally very good at this thing, but think they made a misstep here. For this simple observation, I have garnered a pejorative characterization of having “my panties in a wad.” This is probably something you would not have included in your prior “analysis” of Windows insults vs Apple insults. I would.