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


To: Slide Rule who wrote (16756)8/16/1998 12:38:00 PM
From: Eric Yang  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 213177
 
Someone on the Intel thread posted a link to a rather negative article on iMac. The piece was so poorly done I felt obligated to email the two editors who write the piece.
Message 5506989
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear "Executive Editors",
I'm writing in regards to your iMac article. computers.com

"how in the heck those people are going to print a page or
swap a file with another computer. "

Funny, I saw about 10 people waiting in line to pay for their iMac today. About half of them bought Epson 600 printers. I guess they're just buying the Epson as doorstops. According to your article it can't possibly print anything. Can it?

Currently I've got 3 PowerMacs at home. G3 minitower /266, a Twentieth Anniversary Mac (Sparticus), and a 7600. I do everything from maintaining a web site, using Photoshop, burning CDs, trading stocks, writing programs, doing financial analysis, surf the net, scanning pictures... among other things all on my Macs. They allow me to work so efficiently that it leaves me just enough time to write emails to brain dead editors. But you know what? I haven't had to use my floppy drive since last March. I think if someone needs a floppy drive badly enough they can afford to spend the $70 or so to buy a external floppy drive or spend a little more for an imation superdisk. Even without the floppy drive on the iMac, I can think of 6+ ways to transfer files the size of those typically stored on floppies.

"The iMac boasts a G3 pedigree, but it's the runt of an award-winning
performance litter. Although the iMac runs with a PowerPC 750 233-MHz
CPU, 512K of secondary cache, and 32MB of SDRAM, it finished behind all
other G3 desktops and PowerBooks we've tested, and it was even slower
than the discontinued 604e-based 9600/350 Power Macintosh. "

Excuse me? The iMac is a $1299 all in one consumer product. It isn't suppose to be faster than the top of the high end Pro G3 desktop line or the 9600. Why in the world would you use this comparison. As long as it kicks the butt of consumer PC's at the same price range, as it obviously does, than it has done what it was designed to do. In fact in real world application tests the iMac can easily outperform most of the mid range PCs costing hundreds more.

I have no idea why you are comparing the iMac to the PowerMac 9600/350. The 9600/350 is a top of the line powerhouse used by hardcore Mac users and in professional settings. The system costs $4000-$5000+ when it first came out. The PowerPC 604e/350 is still one of the fastest processor in the industry today. It scores higher than Pentium II 400 in SPECint 95. IBM used 604e in many of its high end servers. The fact that a 9600/350 is just 20% or so faster than this $1300 iMac is suppose to be a bad thing? I know you guys have been working overtime to put negative spin on things... Do try harder next time.

"We experienced uncommon twitches with the display settings, as well"

This is the first time I've heard of this about the iMac. With refresh rate up to 117Hz, the monitor used in the iMac is by far one of the sharpest 15" display you'll find in the market today. Just about every review I read mentioned this fact. I've seen the iMac screen in person and it was bright and sharp. It just might be that it was your eyes that were twitching..... That is pretty common symptom among irritated PC users who after seeing Apple's superior design just realized how ugly their computer is at home.

Dear "executive editors", may I humbly suggest that you do a bit more research for your future articles?

Regards,

Eric Yang



To: Slide Rule who wrote (16756)8/16/1998 2:41:00 PM
From: Jaidev Sharma  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 213177
 
Trip to CompUSA Cincinnati/comments on stock price

This mail contains:
- commentary on my trip to CompUSA Cincinnati.
- comments on Apple Stock Price in the next 1 month.

TRIP TO CompuUSA, Cincinnati:
-----------------------------
I went to the CompUSA at Cincinnati yesterday too. Wasn't particularly impressed with their service for the Macintosh section. I was mostly on my own. Overheard a salesman saying that they had sold 18 iMacs since the launch by 5pm. I had pre-reserved mine, but they still had more.

Talked to a few people in the Mac section and they were unable to find service people who could answer their questions such as:
- I have a lot of floppy drives with data saved from other Macs, how do I transfer that data to my iMac.
- How do I make a bakup of all my data.
- How many external devices can I hook up to an iMac. Someone wanted to hook up a printer, a scanner, a zip drive and a floppy drive, but the lack of the usual tower was confusing and they were wondering whether they can do that and how. They also wanted to know how much would the whole thing cost.

In short, lack of answers to these questions was preventing at least 10 people from making a decision in favor of the iMacs. 1 or two people felt uncomfortable with the mouse. Everyone seemed to like the iMac design though.

Hopefully Apple will take useful input from iMac when they launch their next product.

Comments on Stock Price
-----------------------
Since there is no big Apple news earnings, I think that the stock price will go upto 42, and then slowly start falling back to the 37-39 range. It will start picking up by Sept 14-15th as money managers start buying in anticipation of the earnings which'll be out in Mid Oct. Something similar happened last quarter. However this quarter is different and has more strength, so it there won't go down much.

I have done well by sticking with Apple for the last one year. I hope to take some profits during the coming week.

Jaidev.