Soup, congrats on the nice options purchase. My thinking is along the lines of George, though I know less than he does about options. There is a conspiracy of interests at options expiration time that often leads to a close near the point of maximum pain. I assume that with so many calls that the stock may well close below those strike points. I'm sure Phil would like to add something here. Anybody else can jump in too.
Rhet, I think you misread my comment as being about Office '98 for the Mac. It was about Windows '98, the pc OS. The upgrade is over three times what Apple charges and the stand alone is two times. But wasn't Windows 95 about $100, from inception? It seems that either the monopoly is starting to invade the pricing of the OS or else Microsoft knows that not many will be sold compared to '95 and needs to recoup engineering expenses. I assume that the OEM cost must stick close to what they get for '95, otherwise it could be embarrassing if the major customers opted to go with '95 over '98.
Linda, I think you are suffering from a bizarre accident somewhere along the line and hope it all works out. As for the education space, I don't think Apple will be winning back market share this year, just hanging in there. And if schools are as flush as the Fortune article indicated, then Apple might even see sales grow. (Kind of like how Novell is supposed to see NOS sales grow slightly despite losing market share to NT.)
Alomex, I don't think there's anything wrong with holding off your buy recommendation until a second quarter of profitability--we must avoid the Amelio one-shot factor. Also, someone on the Dell thread had access to an European pc report and it showed that Apple had stuffed the channel there last quarter, though not as much as IBM and Compaq. So maybe last quarter's numbers were a little worse than we think and this quarter will come in at $1.4 billion revenue after all. The call buyers would get minor burns, and then Apple can resume the upward path next week with clearing skies forecast for the next nine months. In Apple's defense, the channel was ridiculously stuffed for Christmas 1996. Apple counted $200 million in Performa sales for that Q but actually sold them in the March quarter. So revenue a year ago was really $1.8 billion and only slightly down from Christmas. So Apple has been essentially cash flow positive from ops for a year now, something most shorts on this board don't realize.
Eric, your last post is the icing on the cake. I declare you board MVP for the quarter. You had stiff competition, but you have done a great job and I appreciate it.
Marc
Edit--Bill, wrong again: <<but you never hear of the outbursts of vituperation that Jobs is famous for.>> Gates is well known for it too. |
