Evan sez:
>Similarly, Apple's price can be somewhat
> related to real-world facts about products: they guessed badly about
> consumer demands in basically all of the last 6 quarters; they picked the
> wrong time to ship a crucial OS upgrade another year late; they got nailed
> in the recent Japanese-currency inflation; they don't have sufficient
> profit margin on their products to create much positive revenue (and it is
> unclear whether dumping half their products will fix this); and so on.
This seems to make sense, but I've got one question: What makes the above any
different from past Apple slumps when Jobs and Sculley left?
I'm not an apologist for Apple, but Bill Hutten's comments have some merit.
Apple is
still a very viable business with enough cash to take some chances on new
technologies. So in answer to this:
> Sure, they're sitting on lots of money, but there doesn't seem to be an
> obvious scenario by which they can ever make _more_ money.
The same scenario by which they've always made more money: Develop new
technologies (OpenDoc, Cyberdog, FutureShare) out the wazoo, stand back and let
developers fend for themselves and keep the ones that work. Make enough money to
sell expensive machines at reasonably high margins. Wait six months for
Microsoft to
rip off the technology and sell a watered-down version to the masses. Meanwhile,
Apple makes a nice profit for a year or two, enough money to pour into R&D while
making them believe they can break 15 percent market share. Then marketing
screws
up projections again, putting them back into the red and getting Gilbert Amelio
fired.
Then bring on the next messianic CEO and the cycle starts again.
So, I guess to rephrase my question: Is this recent slump just another part of
Apple's
cycle or do you really think they're going down the toilet unless they do some
major
restructuring?
>they picked the wrong time to ship a crucial OS upgrade another year late
Weren't they saying this about Microsoft two years ago?
>Case in point: Netscape's stock price
[snip]
>is at this point based on theories (dumb
>theories, we think, but still theories)
So couldn't you say the same about Apple's *devalued* stock? How come the
Netscape
investors are dumb, but the ones who dumped Apple are smart? (Come to think of
it,
didn't Netscape's IPO coincide with Apple's downfall? Hmmm.... maybe these
investors
are one and the same.)
Dwayne (No, not the one you all know and love.)
Chapel Hill, N.C. USA
"This PowerBook will burst into flames in 10 seconds."