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

To: Linda Kaplan who wrote (11495)	4/16/1998 9:26:00 AM
From: Bill Jackson	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 213176

Linda, This is good for Apple, but not optimal. Note sales for the quarter are down to 1.6B from 1.8B, but costs fell faster and more units sold,leaving more profits. The quarter we are now in will have a lot less OS sales and traditionally consumer sales fall this quarter and really bottom in the summer quarter(only coming back in Sept). Costs have been cut and I expect sales to fall a bit more this quarter and profits to be a bit less, and there may even be a loss in Q3/Q4 until the educationals and fall sales pick up the slack. Critical is the rate of fall of sales and at what level will the fall stop and an increase begin. Also critical was the profit, which means that the bleeding has (hopefully) stopped. New products are sorely needed. The crash and burn of the Wintel NC computers means that the same fate may be in store for the Apple NCs, which means smart CEOs in this area will pullback on full production commitments, and make a few to test the water, or exit this area as Apple cannot afford an expensive investment that sells not. A smart box would have the ability to be upmothered to a G3 full system. By that I mean they can make an NC that has an upgrade path to a standard product so losses are minimized if they fail to sell. I expect the story is now written on NCs, they are dead and Apple should avoid them. All the makers of NCs have lost a bundle and I do not want Apple to join them. A big mistake on NC would make earning crahs and burn for a few quarters. bill