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

To: Keith Howells who wrote (9615)	3/17/1998 2:43:00 PM
From: L.Gardner	Respond to of 213176

Keith, You and others on this thread do too much hand-wringing over sub-thou computers. Apple's is in a slightly better position to profit from that market than Compaq, etc., by virtue of offering better performance with less-expensive chips. Margins will be low, but aren't likely to effect revenue generated from publishing, etc., as those buyers will of course opt for the big boxes. But the whole computer landscape will shift over the next several years. The margins will not come from boxes, neither PPC, nor Intel, but from proprietary standards that can be licensed (none of which any big Wintel box maker possesses). Apple has technology to aid it in making a the transition from isolated desktop boxes to network computing, which (imo) is inevitable. The wintel box makers and even msft are all still profiting from a norm that will soon become superannuated, making these stocks extremely expensive, imo. Jobs is running the shop very lean and smart, I think. Which is correct, as the next paradigm hasn't yet settled. If aapl can generate even modest profits over the next few Qs, then it's still a very cheap stock. well. . . L.G.

To: Keith Howells who wrote (9615)	3/17/1998 2:52:00 PM
From: David Semoreson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 213176

It is important to remember that the PowerPC is cheaper than the equivilent Pentium, so that AAPL has better margin at the same retail price point. Sure, it will be less than the current margin, but it WILL be profitable.

To: Keith Howells who wrote (9615)	3/17/1998 4:37:00 PM
From: basiji	Respond to of 213176

Until now, Apple's main problem has been to stem the flood of red ink gushing from Cupertino. Costs have been cut, the company has been focussed, the hw and sw products for now and the near future are on-track. Kudos to Apple, and the stock price has entered the 20's in response. The main bleat you hear from the PC analyst chicken littles is "The market share is falling, the market share is falling!" Like it or not, these folks dictate much of the mood in the market with respect to computer stocks. To make them happy and to get the stock stably into the 30's, Apple will have to sell some inexpensive boxes to gain market share and ensure their long-term viability. The trick is to do so without killing their profitability. I think Steve's Fall timeline is intended to allow Apple to capitalize on its high-margin product line while they fine tune their on-line and build-to-order capabilities and increase their production capacity for the low-end units. When the time comes to sacrifice margins and ship many many boxes, they'll be at peak efficiency so they can gain market share while preseving the earnings growth that Wall Street can't do without. Regards, Dave