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

To: Adam Nash who wrote (27814)	3/8/2000 9:25:00 PM
From: FruJu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213182

WE talked about the 1Ghz/G4 debacle a while back. Recently I've been wondering if it matters, really, in the long term. It matters in the long term in that even if you restrict yourself to only competing in the "consumer market", the inevitable march of progress means that today's high end technology becomes next year's (or perhaps the year after that) consumer's technology. If your high end technology is MIA, that means your consumer technology will be MIA next year. If the PowerPC group delivers a 1Ghz chip by end of year, Willamette will be closer to 1.2Ghz, but that's not a tragic problem. If Motorola gets a PowerPC G4+ out the door and shipping in an Apple machine by the end of the year, I'll be happy. If they get it shipping at 800MHz, I'll be ecstatic. If they get it shipping at 1GHz, I'll eat my hat. Seriously, I think that the MHz gap may have become a breach rather than a gap. It's serious enough that I would not be at all suprised if Apple were very heavily pondering its options and alternatives to its current dependence on Motorola/PowerPC/Altivec. In retrospect, making such a heavy reliance on Altivec was a big mistake - a) it was a year late, and b) Motorola had exclusive control over it after the Somerset breakup. If there hadn't been the (admittably admirable and sensible at the time) desire to push Altivec throughout the line, IBM could have been supplying competitive G3 and descendants without Altivec at 750MHz at this time. The real bread-and-butter for Apple now is the consumer machines. And the question is, where does Apple move the iMac/iBook over the year? The problem is that Apple is between a rock and a hard place. If they start shipping consumer machines with faster G3s, they make their professional machines look plain silly. I disagree with you and think, sad as it may be, that they will be forced to sit on their hands and wait for Motorola to shrink the existing G4 to 0.18u and then put that in the iBooks and iMacs. Then hope that the G4+ makes it out without bugs in a reasonable time frame and ship something in the professional line with the G4+ before the end of the year. The big wildcard in the professional line is the introduction of multiprocessor machines. Apple has been almost silent on the support for MP in OS X. I'd lay some money that Seybold SF will see a big MP hardware/OS X introduction to placate the graphic content and professional crowd who must be wetting their pants seeing $2499 1GHz Athlons on the desks next to them. Fru>

To: Adam Nash who wrote (27814)	3/8/2000 9:36:00 PM
From: Richard Habib	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 213182

Adam, you would think that the 1 Ghz machines would begin to impact Apple, at the very least in mindshare. On the other hand Fred stated he saw top line and unit growth in the 30% range which frankly surprised me. I still don't feel comfortable being back in the stock here, one reason being the accelerating gap in perceived performance. On the other hand I think Fred is a straight shooter and so I wouldn't bet against Apple here. Regarding Willamette, I wouldn't be shocked if by Dec its closer to 1.4 Ghz. With the large on chip caches as well as the fact that it is supposedly a far better core than x86 its supposed to be a real screamer. At the very least I think it will substantially close if not eliminate the performance gap with G4 on a Mhz to Mhz basis. Still, Intel expects it to be a high end machine and only plan on 100ks units in 2000. Rich

To: Adam Nash who wrote (27814)	3/9/2000 10:28:00 AM
From: BillHoo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 213182

<<Can IBM deliver 600Mhz, 700Mhz G3 parts, or does Apple try to move the iMac to lower Mhz G4s?>> The beauty of software is that it can be adjusted and ported to different processors. I'd like to see Mac OS on Intel. Let's see what THAT does to the market. -Bill_H

To: Adam Nash who wrote (27814)	3/9/2000 4:49:00 PM
From: Zen Dollar Round	Respond to of 213182

If the PowerPC group delivers a 1Ghz chip by end of year, Willamette will be closer to 1.2Ghz, but that's not a tragic problem. Isn't that a pretty big "If?" My understanding is that we'll be lucky to have an 800Mhz G4+ by then, much less a Ghz chip. Unless Apple starts bashing some heads at Motorola and strongarms them into letting IBM ship its faster chips, we'll be lucky indeed. I think Apple's best bet is to hire away all the top talent from Motorola, partner with IBM (and maybe AMD) and get cracking on the next generation of PowerPC chips. Motorola clearly doesn't have its act together and has not made the PowerPC a top priority for a long time. Perhaps they don't like Steve Jobs for screwing them on the clones or for his tirade at the Texas plant a few years ago. Whatever, I say kick Motorola out of the picture altogether and forge ahead without them. Motorola has worn out its welcome! Furthermore, I hope someone has the stones to bring this up at the annual shareholders' meeting and get some answers from The Man about it.