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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Marc Newman who wrote (25233)	6/24/1999 1:43:00 AM
From: Richard Habib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213186

Marc, here is a very positive spin on recent news put together it appears by Eric, Rumors and AppleInsider. As regards the iMac shortages, business as usual but trust me - it will be an issue during the cc. There is no way Apple can deny as much as a 5 week sales suspension from one important outlet. Regarding options, it's only my opinion but the way I play short term options is to sit tight and let the time value decrease. We may not have seen a bottom yet and every day the stock languishes and we close in on July expiration, just out of the money calls will decrease in price. The glitch is that last year we always had the advantage of being better informed than the analysts, hence the upside surprises consistently yielded nice rewards in expiring options. That's no longer the case. Also we don't have the keynote until after July expirations and that complicates. Still, I'll be keeping an eye on July just out of the money calls and if we get a combination of news that would indicate the market is uniformed, together with weakness in the stock that would indicate to me solid potential for profit I'll PM you. Don't know about you but in short term options I like to feel I have a pretty significant chance of success otherwise I'll pass and look for a setup prior to another months expiration date. Rich

To: Marc Newman who wrote (25233)	6/24/1999 1:45:00 AM
From: Richard Habib	Respond to of 213186

Dodging the Bullet: Apple's Consumer Portable Plans Remain Intact, iMacs May Slip [18:45 6/23] This report was compiled and edited in cooperation with AppleInsider. The pressure surrounding the progress of Apple's Consumer hardware projects has apparently taken its toll on the company's executive staff -- who earlier this week called a senior-level meeting under maximum secrecy to discuss the future of their extensively researched and much-anticipated Consumer Portable. According to sources whom we consider very reliable, the Consumer Portable (code-named P1, sometimes "Proto99"), will absolutely not be scrapped or put on the back burner. The word on the street is that completely functional prototypes of Consumer Portable boot and perform cleanly, while dazzling in their multi-colored and semi-translucent Light Diffusion LEXAN shells. The recent concern pertains to some frustrating stability issues (some related to temperature) with the implementation of Apple's "Open World" Common Hardware Architecture and ASICs (Application Specific Integrated Circuits) which the Consumer Portable is based on. These issues are apparently causing the unit to fail Apple quality assurance tests. Information provided by sources suggests that these issues will be hammered out the hard way, even if this means slight delays in delivering the Consumer Portable to customers -- but that these problems do not appear serious enough to cause major delays or shift the introduction of the machine away from the much anticipated Macworld New York Expo next month. Apple also recently signed an agreement with Taiwan's Alpha Top Corp. to begin producing the Consumer Portable sometime this month. Additionally, rumor has it that Apple has already disclosed a select group of individuals on the project, as well as assuring certain large Universities that product information will become available on the 21st of July (the day of Steve Jobs' Macworld Keynote). In fact, today the Register U.K., a respected technology tabloid, is reporting that Alpha Top still "plans an initial shipment of iMac notebooks in August." The article goes on to state, "Alpha expects to ship 200,000 units by the end of 1999, equating to sales of $375 million," confirming reports from our sources. A short test run of Apple's new Consumer Portable is scheduled for July, in order to produce demo units to be shown at Macworld. The Consumer Portable is a vital component in Apple's ongoing comeback strategy, and in all likelihood will appear publicly at Macworld in one form or another, regardless of whether or not Apple is ready to ship the product immediately. According to Apple analyst Eric Yang, street estimates on unit shipment of the Consumer Portable are around 1 million units per year or 250 thousand units a quarter. "If each of consumer portables were to be sold for $1150 retail ($1000 wholesale), it would bring in $250 million in revenue for Apple, the majority of which will be additive to Apple's current revenue," Yang said. And if some reports of the cost-cutting results of the new Unified Motherboard Architecture used in the Portable are accurate, profit potential could exceed even these estimates. The 4lb. sub-notebook is rumored to ship in a variety of flavors come release time, though prototype units have been known to sport smoke-gray and purple translucent enclosures (common to recent Apple translucent prototypes). A withdrawable handle, tinted translucent keyboard, and active-matrix quality (whether or not the unit is actually Active is still in dispute) equivalent 10-12" display are among some of the Consumer Portable's confirmed features. In related news, Apple's next-generation iMac (which Steve Jobs has reportedly dubbed "Kehei" after an island off Maui where he often likes to vacation) was also scheduled to make a splash at this summer's Macworld Expo. According to industry sources, Apple recently scrapped this timetable as Jobs ordered that a major revision be made to its logic board (often referred to by the codename "C2") in order to advance the iMac's price/performance and add at least one vital feature that was lacking from the first-cycle C2. "Flavored" iMacs are apparently selling in incredible numbers, so much so that Apple has ceased shipment from its Apple consumer online store in attempts to fill educational store orders for the upcoming school year. Simultaneously, the company is in the process of transitioning its iMac production to third parties; this is apparently compounding the problem. Retail chains and mail order catalogs continue to have an ample supply of all flavors, sources said, and the problems appear to be transient. The "C2" iMac will be based on Apple's Single Common Unified Architecture, sharing a majority of its components with the next-generation Pro Desktop "Sawtooth," P1, and the next-generation Powerbook. It will feature a redesigned enclosure, an improved display with a larger viewable area, cheaper memory and component upgrades as well as impressive motherboard specifications, among other as-yet-unconfirmed features. The project has been rescheduled for a late Autumn release and should be in excellent supply come the holiday shopping season, sources said. Prototype units will begin to be seeded in September. While rumors of delays always spawn justifiable concern among the Mac faithful, Apple's decision to make the hard calls and reorient itself for a better angle of attack on its Consumer product lines is good news -- and positions the platform for another surge of growth with due haste. What the slow, uninformed "mainstream" press seems to be pushing about consumer product problems at Apple is sensationalism at its worst. As with most cases of this kind, thinking for one's self is strongly advised. Apple, as expected, declined to comment on any aspect of this report.