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

To: Phillip C. Lee who wrote (9825)	3/21/1998 1:14:00 AM
From: FR1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213173

I thought this might be of interest: March 20, 1998: 7:29 p.m. ET Apple Computer NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Apple Computer Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs may be forced by directors to decide whether or not he wants the top spot at the computer maker, according to a report in Business Week. The magazine, citing unnamed sources, said Apple directors will ask Jobs at a board meeting Tuesday whether he plans to stay on or make way for a permanent successor. If he's willing to stay, he could receive as much as an 8 percent stake in the company. However, sources tell the magazine that Jobs will not have long to decide. In fact, the board reportedly already has a successor in mind, although the candidate will only take the post is Jobs abdicates the top spot. Asked by the magazine to comment on the reports, Jobs replied by e-mail: "Your sources are wrong." Jobs has been flip-flopping on his status at Apple for months. It appeared he was ready to take the top spot last October, but after returning from a vacation, he told the board he didn't want the position permanently. He said he would rather stay at the held of Pixar Animation Studios. Then in December, Apple insiders told the magazine Jobs asked the board to make him an offer to keep the spot. After turning down the board's first offer, directors sweetened it, but that still wasn't enough for Jobs, BusinessWeek reported. Directors didn't have any formal job discussions with him for about two months until several weeks ago when he asked the board during a conference call to make him another offer. The magazine said directors upped the offer to between 5 and 8 percent of Apple shares, worth about $270 million. Analysts say Jobs wants to ensure the company is on the road to recovery before taking over. Apple is moving to shore up its product line by offering a new set-top box, code-named Columbus. However, Jobs comes away a winner under both scenarios since his 72 percent stake in Pixar is now worth about $1 billion. Meanwhile, Apple's stock has also been on the rise this year, soaring to just over $26 a share from less than $18 only a few months ago.

To: Phillip C. Lee who wrote (9825)	3/21/1998 5:46:00 AM
From: Hugues	Respond to of 213173

Hello Revenue is the big issue. There are so many factors (see below), I don't think it is possible to make an educated guess, if you are not Apple. Different factors: Effect %Q2/Q1 est. Factor + + 5 % ? Sales withheld on Q1 in US, waiting for the G3 - -20 % ? Sales withheld on Q2, waiting for the high level G3 - - 6 % Decreasing trend in Apple sales in 97, showing lack of trust - -16 % Seasonal effect q2/q1 + + 6 % ?? Return of trust: snail ad,apple store,q1 result,S.Jobs,QT,Office98 - -15 % Decrease of price/unit + +15 % PC market trend + + 5 % ? Better specialized distribution channel: CompUsa, Apple store - - 5 % ? Less Point of sales + +10 % ?? Non US G3 sales + +20 % Clone disappearance If I add it up, I find -1 %, but it is so uncertain... The signals of good sales so far have been weak: The January figures are for retail sector only, and in a month were nobody would normally buy a PC. So this lessens their otherwise dramatic importance. The 100 000 G3 sold in Europe are compatible with the 325 000 projection for Q2, as you pointed out. But it could be a way for the European manager to show off because of better European sales than US. And this tells us nothing about the other systems The 5 % figure of Jobs could be for the installed base, and not for the current sales. I would have expected the Seybold convention to come out with more interesting figures. If there were some, Jobs could have shown them The focus on AMP worries me. Besides the difficulty of being an entirely new market, it shows Apple concern on the core business as if there was nothing they could do to increase it. ### So while I am a firm believer that Apple can compete on its niche for long, as far are the stock price is concerned, I begin to find it a little high, or at least risky, as long as we do not have more precise figures. To conclude on a brighter note, the future of Apple is clearly Rhapsody (though Linux is making its way). However, I have seen no rationale or financial analysis of what it could lead to. How much systems they could or should sell. At what price. what could be the adverse effect on hardware sales. With what kind of additional software revenue I feel this could easily bring a stable net result of several hundreds of billion $, which could boost the stock. But his tis still to be grounded Hugues

To: Phillip C. Lee who wrote (9825)	3/21/1998 10:27:00 AM
From: rhet0ric	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213173

(4) Cost - (1) You might need to consider the cost saving (if any) on Newton's layoffs. I read somewhere that all the Newton engineers still remaining were moved to Columbus/AMP. Oh, and as far as Newton goes, Apple has sold out its inventory of MessagePads, whatever that's worth. An article in the NY Times said that Apple would continue to sell eMates for a couple of quarters. See: nytimes.com Then there's the Claris layoffs, though I don't know about the restructuring charge for that, i.e. whether it was taken already, or will hit this quarter. Do you know the answer to this? After looking at all the variables Hugues posted, I think Alomex is right: we feel Q2 results will be good, but we don't really know for sure. As for price, I think van wang is right on that one: until further news emerges, we seem to be looking at a support point of $26 and a resistance point of $27. rhet0ric