I haven't studied the outstanding share issue, perhaps someone else can respond? I'm long on Apple, making my first purchase ever at $21 last fall, then tripling my position at $17. This stock will be a long-term winner, IMHO. The next 6 months will be very exciting for Apple shareholders, with another stinging loss coming from this past quarter, while the fastest notebook and desktop computers on the planet are rolling out. I see the Apple story as being more of a race to get these superior products on the market in time to change the largely misinformed perception that Apple is dying. So far, they appear to be delivering the goods as promised.
The PowerPC's performance has really pulled ahead of the Wintel camp this year, and will continue to do so, with 300-533 MHz CPUs in their "604e" top-of-the-line processor coming out over the next 6 months. The 300Mhz middle level processor, the "603e" was just released in quantity today, and it's been compared to the Mhz rating on Pentiums (a 200Mhz 603e is roughly equivalent to a 200 Mhz Pentium), so you can imagine how much faster the 604e series is going to be at real-world tasks. The best part is that these exponential gains in performance will be offered at lower prices in some cases, or at a small premium over Pentium technology. I believe creative content authors will suck up this extra processing speed like bees to honey.
If Avid execs are smart, they will continue to develop their nonlinear systems around Apple's increasingly faster CPUs. And if they do, the Intel association will only result in an Avid-Wintel system which offers cross-platform compatibility, but performs on a markedly slower Pentium-based machine. As one who has sometimes waited for hours while fairly simple composited video layers rendered on an Avid Media Composer, I can assure you that a performance doubling or tripling will greatly increase productivity during an edit.
D. Kuspa |
