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

To: Alomex who wrote (8108)	2/1/1998 3:32:00 PM
From: Richard Habib	Respond to of 213173

Oracle would be crazy to buy or merge with APPL right now. ORCLs stock has been punished. It has just started a small rally based on Ellison projecting 25% N. American DB market growth. Any deal with APPL would be looked on unfavorably by analysts and you'd see ORCL stock back in mid-teens. What does APPL offer ORCL? The NC?? currents.net This article as well as others indicates that the NC market is a nitch market at least for the forseeable future. Not only is it a nitch market but MS and Intel are after a piece of the pie and with the NetPC, Windows Terminal and Hydra (Demoed in LV) is actually ahead of the the Java Machine, etc. in attacked this relatively small market. If you were an IT manager I would think having a Windows solution, ie Windows Terminal with Hydra would be a seductive idea vice a yet another new software and hardware architecture. If there is an announcement tomorrow I doubt it will be a merger or buyout by ORCL. Perhaps Jobs has finally decided to accept CEO?

To: Alomex who wrote (8108)	2/3/1998 9:38:00 AM
From: rhet0ric	Respond to of 213173

Even while Apple can be overall moving in the right direction this does not stop them from making the occasional mistake. The clone decision was one of them. Yes, but why? Pro-cloners point to the PC market and argue that cloning increases market share, makes the platform more innovative and competitive, etc., etc. But the PC market is not the Mac market. Mac market share dropped during the entire clone period. And if market share is dropping, increased innovation and competitiveness only mean higher R&D costs and lower margins for everyone. Cloning would probably have been the right move for Apple in, say, 1988. But in the mid 90s, it was way too late. I don't know how familiar you are with the NeXT story, but Jobs made the very same mistakes with the black cube as with the original Mac. Actually, I would say that he made opposite mistakes. The big problem with the first Mac was lack of memory. That shows a lack of foresight. (Bill Gates made a worse mistake with the 640k limit on PCs, or at least it plagued PCs for longer.) The big problem with the cube was its lack of a floppy drive. That shows too much foresight. Basically, Jobs saw the cube as a network computer. It was a brilliant vision, but unfortunately it was about 10 years too soon--the market wasn't ready for it. It's interesting that, if the rumors are correct, Jobs is now re-implementing his original vision. Hopefully the market has caught up to him, or he has enough sense to make local storage an option. Jobs is not even 1/10th as good a salesman as Gates, something that can easily be attested by their fortunes and market prowess. Jobs strengths lay elsewhere: guts, vision, leadership. We may actually agree on something here, though I would phrase it differently. I would say that Jobs is a very good salesman, i.e. he pitches products well, but what he has never understood before (and this may be changing) is the importance of price and its relation to market share in the computer industry, something that Gates understood from day one. Gates lost money on DOS initially, and in the process gained market share dominance with a crappy product. Jobs, at both Apple and NeXT, pursued a high/right strategy, where he offered a superior product, but at prices that prevented strong market share. There was an article recently (Techweb? 10/97?) that quoted Jobs as saying that there is a terrific future in low cost, i.e. sub-$500, computer appliances. It was after reading that article that I went long in AAPL, because if Jobs has learned his lesson about price, he could do anything. respectfully, rhet0ric