Phil,
If Apple's executives cannot straighten out this issue with IBM and Motorola and reorganize its sell forecast model, then there
will be little hope to turn to profits.
Apple's inability to correctly forecast and meet demand for its high end systems has been, in my opinion, its most serious problem. And is the cause for its currrent plight. I have worked in the prepress/graphics biz for 7 years. In '95 the co. I was working for ordered an 8100/100 which had just been released. By the time we received this computer, 6 months later, the box had been discontinued and the 9500 had been announced as shipping. Our new machine was already obsolete. The same thing happened to hundreds of thousands of loyal Apple customers. It astonishes me that Apple execs have not recognised this and devoted some serious attention to resolving the lack of chip supply that consistently hampers Apples ability to meet demand year after year. Again recently, Apple discontinued the 9600/350 because there were not enough chips. At least this time they discontinued the model rather than leading on and frustrating further already frustrated customers. But there's always the question what if they had met the demand? How much sales could they have gained then? You'd think Motorola would want to sell as many chips that they can to Apple, but because of their recent licensing disputes, perhaps Motorola is not doing all it can to satisfy Apples need for chips? There is always a huge demand for faster hardware from graphics users and Apple knows this, yet they have been unable to profit from this situation like they could have. If they cannot produce enough high end systems themselves, they should reconsider licensing CRHP to Umax and allowing at least one other clone vendor to help meet the needs of its customers rather then let those customers migrate to NT.
You are right though Apple needs improve its relationships with its chip suppliers so that it gets the chips it needs when it needs them.
Aaron Z. |
