Please forgive me if I bring up issues that you all have already addressed, but am a newcomer to the community.
I got quite long (for me, at least) in Apple about a month ago. My reasoning was as follows.
- By traditional valuation principles, Apple was (and is) cheap
- It's P/E & price to book were extraordinarily low for a company that had the potential to grow quickly
Truthfully, though, I was more entranced with the David and Goliath part of the story. Apple has better technology, and their RISC platform is far more promising than Intel's CISC. Microsoft is now producing functional products, but their software has never been as easy to use as Apple's. Apple's technological lead is real, and it will grow.
Further, the Beta argument is a misread of the way people use computers today. I use the basic Word, Excel and database programs in work and life, but I spend at least equal amounts of time on the web. I expect to tilt further towards web-based usage as network connections and web resources improve, as they almost certainly will.
Others have chronicled the resultant growth in sub-$1,000 PCs, as fewer system resources are required on the desktop. But this also means that the user platform becomes less important. Therefore, Apple's edge due to their superior technology may not weigh as heavily as we longs would like.
More importantly, however, as more programs are designed for web-based traffic, both Macs and PCs will be running the same Java scripts. Thus, Macs will never be isolated from the most vibrant and critical software of the future. They will have identical access thereto.
As a result, aesthetic and reliability will become more important in platform selection. On both fronts, Apple is unquestionably superior.
Finally, as we all bore witness to today, while the 'Beta' attitude limits revenues, it elevates margins. Apple's expected margins are unquestionably higher than other PC makers, who are simply assemblers and will never be entitled to the 'creative profits' that Apple may claim.
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Am I making sense? |
