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

To: Don S.Boller who wrote (8071)	1/30/1998 5:15:00 AM
From: Ken Robbins	Respond to of 213173

Don, Apple's declining sales in Japan cited as one reason for Cannon/Compacq marketing deal: "He added that a declining share of sales of Apple Computer Inc's (AAPL - news) products in its total sales also prompted it to seek a new line of PCs. Apple PCs accounted for about 60 percent of Canon Sales' total PC sales in 1996, but declined to less than 50 percent in 1997, Takikawa said. ''With the tie-up with Compaq, we can now seriously aim at raising our share of Japan's PC sales to 10 percent from the current seven percent,'' he said." Quoted from: biz.yahoo.com

To: Don S.Boller who wrote (8071)	1/30/1998 7:50:00 AM
From: Bill Jackson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213173

Don, Apple did have to become profitable by downsizing expenses to fit sales that were falling. At least from a profit position they will buy time. Continued losses would have killed all future prospects in a year or so. The wonder is why they previous management was so dumb and was allowed to stay on, paying themselves huge options and wages at the expense of the future. All French managers come from a society where bloat and costs are offloaded to the government(Bull of France lost billions of $ in Wintels(they foolishly made funny proprietary Wintel boxes and died of it, sounds like AAPL?), and was propped up). As you say the brand is now fully tarnished, and linked in peoples minds with high cost artsy fartsy activities. They will have to make a change to that perception. They can ignore that dedicated segment as they need the Apples for their graphics/audio/printing uses, and will buy them through channels they already know. What is needed is a broad consumer approach highlighting their strengths and cost equivalencies to Wintels. One problem with that is there is no competitive situation in Apple CPUs that is like the fierce price wars between Intel/AMD/Cyrix*NS/et al makers. This might make it hard for them to meet price competition. It is useless to say Apple does not need to meet the price, "it is better" will not cut it any more. Bill