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

To: J R KARY who wrote (24583)	5/5/1999 2:52:00 PM
From: Richard Habib	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213177

Was looking at Dataquest numbers for PC sales worldwide in Q1 99. Looks like about 25M units were sold. Would give Apple 3.3% of the worldwide market in CY99 Q1. Alas, that is down some 8% from CY98 Q4. Keep in mind the numbers are probably somewhat soft. But it does indicate the problem Apple has trying to gain marketshare with such huge PC sales numbers. The math remains against them. Apple has to ramp its manufacturing capacity somehow. We've beat this problem to death but once again, I'd point out that Apple will need to be producing over 1M units a Qtr by this time next year in order to just maintain current shares. I would think this weighs heavily on top execs. Although, Andrew disagrees and believes absolute numbers may be more important than relative share I have serious doubts whether that is true when media driven perceptions are so important. Rich

To: J R KARY who wrote (24583)	5/5/1999 3:28:00 PM
From: Richard Habib	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 213177

Jim, I didn't respond to you regarding IBM. Take a look at this quote pulled off MacCentral. Nancy Eames, an IBM spokesperson, told MacCentral "As you know, we do not plan to manufacture G4 at this time, and instead are focused on using our technology advantages in producing faster G3 products." IBM has traditionally been first to market with faster PowerPC chips, basing its chips on copper technology and being the first to debut 466 MHz PowerPC processors (the fastest currently available.) The last previous quote we had was from mid-Dec 98 when IBM spokesperson said they would try to work out their differences with Apple/MOT. It certainly appears to me that they haven't resolved the problem. Apple has obviously chosen Altivec. Apple can't support Altivec and non-Altivec chips for very long. Software Developers wouldn't be interested. The Mac market is too small. MY prediction - Apple will shortly be dependent on MOT for chips. IBM will be for the most part a competitor, especially in high end notebooks. Rich