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

To: rhet0ric who wrote (8532)	2/16/1998 11:16:00 AM
From: soup	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213177

A Snail's Pace. 1) Without going into specifics, I can attest that my costs for such older machines as the 7300/180 are going up and availability is dropping. (I sell Macs retail, for those that don't know.) My perspective is obviously anecdotal but, if true industry-wide, it means that AAPL has been successful at clearing out older inventory without resorting to firesale pricing. (This is even with the G3 ad blitz -- a woman abruptly left my store the other day when I even suggested a model other than a G3.) :! I initially attributed continued demand for these units are testimonies to AAPL's new wisdom of spec-ing the G3s as mid-level machines and holding off on delivering the new high-end's so as not to kill demand for the older stuff. (BTW, I'm not referring to the 6500 line, which I feel the current G3 line is the rightful replacement for.) However my broker-analyst friend said that Jobs was livid when he learned that the planned G3 "PowerExpress" technology would not work and would have to be cancelled. Better to be lucky than smart. 2) Regarding the suitability of El Se¤or Jobs for the CEO slot. I think he is fully aware of his own strengths and limitations and has constructed scenarios to either a) hand off the position to a good operations man whom he can live/work with or b) set up a team of subordinates that would allow to continue the "Office of the President" status. Either way AAPL shareholders could do a hell of a lot worse. soup

To: rhet0ric who wrote (8532)	2/16/1998 11:32:00 AM
From: Bill Jackson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213177

Rhetoric, Macro to micro is too great a swing. He should be less micro, but not like Scully. He loses himself in minutae. The yes men are at the local level. I see no evidence that the board members are having any input at all. Good to look at, but too strong for Jobs to have 'in the house' One attribute is micro managers is to nickel and dime. An expense of $10,000 per annum should not even come into his purview. True 10,000 of those are $100 million, however I think you undertstand. He does not prioritise and leave small low value decision to lower delegated persons. He hogs them. A recipe for overwork and underperformance. When I see those comments about 16 hour days, I smell trouble, as this is bad management. Catherd, I like that. He drives good people away with personal insults. Only those who can stand up to it stay, or those who toadey to it. You know what I mean"toady", to do something they dislike for the money only, and their selves are out of the loop, it is not error correcting" Vision? Yes we can all see flying cats, and orbital mice. Looking forward to the extrapolation of technologies and the envisioning of new tech is as common as dirt. You give Jobs too much credit for universal attributes. What he has is monomania. He will pursue a bad pathway and bot see it is bad as he thinks it is good. Killing clones for example. Dumbest, no vision thing he could have done. Bill

To: rhet0ric who wrote (8532)	2/16/1998 11:44:00 AM
From: Edward Boghosian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213177

By nickel and dimeing I meant that Apple has many problems that must be addressed simultaneously. I don't see Jobs doing this. He takes one problem and works on it. Take for example the advertising program. Jobs does not know how to attack. An aggressive and I mean an aggressive ad campaign should have been started last year. Instead, we had that "be different" campaign which in my estimation was worse than laughable. I showed the ad which was on the back cover of a magazine to my wife and her comment was "what is it?". The snail ad is good but like the snail it is too slow in developing. We had the snail. Now we should have something like a bar comparison between G3 and Intel or what is extra with Wintel machines is standard with Apple. Someone mentioned Apple had more money than we think. If it does than it should be aware that if you want to make money you have to spend money. A big whopper would be to propose an extended warranty like 30,000 hours or 3 years, whichever comes first. Another sore spot to me and I think it was and still is a big blunder by Apple is the loss of the 800 number for help. Enough said. Ed