Phillip; I think the shorts are placing the emphasis on the short term. Virtually nothing can be done to boost sales this quarter, as the pipeline is empty, chip shortages etc .Thus any sense of confidence that quickly boosts the stock will soon evaporate and the stock will fall back, even though the strategy will work in the longer term.
As you say Apple may cease fabrication if Umax carries the ball(and some risk). There needs to be more than just Umax cloning though to gain on the Wintels. The Wintels are strong in Asia and it will be just as hard to build share there as in the USA, a balance of price and performance.
The IBM/Motorola joint chip source will determine the final price issues, as they need to sell lots of silicon, and they must drop their prices, like Intel or faster, as Apple/clones need the lower price to compete.
(the losses by Apple over the past 5-7 years are due entirely to the inability of the platform to compete on price, we all know it can compete on performance, but price is what counts, except for the niches like graphics and music.)
That alone will tell the tale.
Bill |
