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

To: J R KARY who wrote (13988)	5/23/1998 3:53:00 PM
From: c-man	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213177

JR - Last post for at least a week - I promise - While I sincerely appreciate the empathy of your posting, I must stress we're doing fine...I am thrilled for the almost 10 years of this great run we have enjoyed with this platform, and what it's provided for my company & family, and extended family for that matter (I brought several family members into the fold over the years)...fortunately I saved my pennies and dimes. We could literally shut our place down for a year, maybe longer, and not feel any pain. So when people say here I'm self-serving and offering "sour grapes", believe me - I'm about ready to retire out of this biz' on my own...Apple's detrimental initiatives are just moving the schedule up a bit. My commentary here in past these 2 days is as much reflective as predictive. If I bought this stock right now, it would be only for short-term trading...I see this as a risky long-term hold. I urge people not to mis-read the temporary success of the G3 product release(s) as proof of a "changed Apple". If anything, the coming operating system paradigm shift will slam Apple harder than ever and soon. If WIN '98 is truly more browser than OS, and it's as easy to use as IE or Netscape...then the damage is arguably beyond repair...as Apple's great ease of use and intuitiveness strengths become closer to parity than ever before with WIN and Apple's reason to exist becomes non-compelling. After all - browsers are platform INDEPENDANT and that takes another reason to buy a Mac away folks. Yes, my volume would qualify me even at 1MILL nowadays, according to Mitch Mandich. Who would want to do this though ? What benefits for the VAR these days ? Establish a business based on access to Apple product through the "authorized channel" only to have the rug pulled out from under the company ? No thanks. I have purposefully avoided being an authorized VAR since day 1...strongly preferred to be able to deal in the open market...buying/selling used/refurb/new product at will and only when the price was right. Plus - I always felt the VAR agreement was barely worth the paper it was written on...all such would allow me to do would be to buy over-priced quasi-wholesale product via Merisel/Ingram et al....and restrict me from reselling into my chosen channel (mailorder)...but we all know most of the MacWeek advertisers violate their VAR agreement explicitly by selling mailorder anyway (except for the very select group known as "authorized catalog resellers, who you can count on about 1 hand (MacMall, MacWarehouse, MacZone, J&R, CDW, and maybe one or two more))...so Apple's contract was at their will and pleasure anyway. What Apple did this week validates that theory. What Apple did to the cloners last year and their once-mighty educational resale channel the year before proves Apple's wishy-washiness over and over. I've established my business solely on my personal skills at buying/selling/recognizing opportunity, specifically without Apple's assistance. > C-Man sorry for you , blame AAPL's actions on its survival instinct <-- Can't/don't blame them a bit...but the survival instinct is as strong in we peons as in Apple corporate...and arguably they put themselves in this situation through gross errors in judgement, while we peons only error was choosing this platform and thinking loyalty counted for something. Oh well...this is the 90s...read any issue of Forbes and we see over and over that loyalty counts very little in the 90s corporate culture. No surprise there. > I observe your selling $2 mln/yr should qualify you for AAPL's new > lowered VAR threshold . Hope you consider it . <-- Would not do so for reasons above. Will now aggressively look elsewhere for opportunity. > I suspect AAPL will sell low margin, competitive products direct. <-- I disagree...I think you'll see the entire line, up to and including servers offered direct, as soon as the infrastructure supports it and/or as Apple ramps down external channels such as VARs, superstores, and mailorder houses which literally and physically forces buyers to what else - "buy direct". My goodness...the server market is the ultra-high-margin business. Do you honestly think Apple would stop short of selling these machines and "protect the channel" for this high-end segment ? Last time I checked, one could order every current Powerbook direct from Apple...why would they focus only on low-margin items for desktops ? Additionally, educational buyers are now DIRECT SOLICITED and encouraged to buy online direct from Apple...how does that make the few authorized educational resellers feel who have multi-mill $$ enterprises staked out on solely Apple (because Apple dumps educational resellers who sell competing platforms into education alongside Apple) ? What price loyalty ? However it is morphing into a multi-platform OS company and there will be new installation and support (enterprise/networking/multi-user) opportunities for VARS at the $2 mln threshold . <-- I can't imagine many capable companies these days would invest in this effort...with Apple's recent tendancy to just dump a reseller without notice, whether educational, cloner, value-add, mailorder, or distributor...sure puts a damper on my interest in investing in an Apple resale business in the future. > Look forward to reading your posts about the coming MacWorld , this > Summer's new product (H/W & OS) events , and hopefully that > marketing savy CEO to handle AAPL's expanded horizions . <-- I'm booked for MacWorld...will go with eyes open as always looking for mega-trends. As for the person who refuses to be named CEO (wants to get the glory, but not take the responsibility for his actions)...no comment. LOL. I may not be able to post much more...I'm sure most are bored by my reflection here. Plus - I've said, in a round-about way (hey - I really wish I had the gift of writing succinctly) about all I know to say. Plus - this is a long-weekend and we've got water toys to try out and kids to entertain. But - appreciate this thread for letting me vent a bit. c-man

To: J R KARY who wrote (13988)	5/23/1998 4:52:00 PM
From: Marc Newman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213177

Jim, there's some disinformation going on somewhere here if Apple says that it is discontinuing 1100 resellers that only average $9000 in sales a year and we've got posters and people being quoted in news articles who say they are selling $500,000, $2,000,000, etc. Where's the truth? Hard to puzzle out. I have the same fears as c-man if Apple thinks it can go direct-only. I don't see much hope for the Mac platform if that happens. As I've posted, I'm in AAPL right now as a value play. Still a lot of low-hanging fruit, but the company needs new products or Windows-convergence by the end of 1999 or Apple will begin to shrink again. Looks like Apple is fixing the iMac modem problem and I have to assume that there will be low-cost USB printers available by introduction. C-Man, hope you stick around or at least post more frequently. Btw, if CompUSA does have an initial order of 70,000, that works out to 500 per store. Way more than your speculation that that's just a number that will fill the shelves. It looks to me that Comp may be trying to get Mac cpu revenue up to 20% via the iMac. Alomex, many have multiple Macs, so the number of real users is in doubt. Everybody I know who bought a Mac in 1996 then effectively retired their current Mac. I touch my LC II about five times a year now. However, it seems to me that the number to focus on here is the ten million Macs that have been sold into the home. Since Mac unit volumes were highest in the early to mid-nineties, I assume that a big pct. of the ten million are still in use and ready for upgrades. My hope is that the iMac can sell in a 1-4 ratio to "new to the Mac" users. That's it. Btw, MacWeek is going to focus on publishing, graphics, etc. Still a huge Mac focus in the magazine. Marc