Steve Jobs for President!

How long will his genious (and those of unnamed Apple employees) continue to drive the reemergence of Apple?

BTW Notice how in the keynote he thanked the employees and their families? I don't remember he doing this before. Wonder if it is related to the crazy woman driving around the parking lot with some big sign criticizing how long he kept her husband working (or something like that)?

Good call. Very funny!

Seriously, people are starting to take notice of Apple again. And not just for the iPod. People are seeing the Xserve and X server as real alternatives because they can't be beaten on price by anything in the market. How much does unlimited client Windows server software cost? Your left nut, that's how much. Of course you could get an Xserve, have better performance, less downtime, easier/cheaper upkeep and still have enough over to literally by a light aircraft (albeit a small one).

Apple are not solely focused on the iPod. They're executing a brilliant, multi-year strategy that will return them to being a force to be reckoned with in IT, not just "a great innovator".

Can I have some of the crunch you're smoking? Steve has taken time out of EVERY keynote he's done for YEARS now to thank the employees and the families. I think it started with the iMac in 1998!

Apple is DOOM... DOOM!!!

:D

The only thing holding Apple back now is us - their dorky, annoying, and arrogant fanboy users. I know more than a few people who stay away from Apple because we are such evangelicals.

So tone it down, chill out, and let the Apple products sell themselves. When it's all said and done, they'll know that you know that you told 'em so.

BTW Notice how in the keynote he thanked the employees and their families? I don't remember he doing this before. Wonder if it is related to the crazy woman driving around the parking lot with some big sign criticizing how long he kept her husband working (or something like that)?

Look, its a sexist pig! :-)

To set the record straight, it was a crazed husband driving around the parking lot criticizing how long they kept his wife working.

But, come on, what's more important? Watching your kids grow up, or getting Tiger out on time?

It's called X-Mas

Quote: [the only thing holding apple back]... is their dorky, annoying, and arrogant fanboy users.

oh c***, I am the only thing holding apple back. I'm sorry.

Thats great news and i expect the iPod shuffle to be a massive hit for 2005 as its such a 'gimmie' product.

I have a iPod mini, but i will be buying the iPod shuffle as soon as they become available !?!

Good work Apple.

I shall call him "Mini Mac"...

While I'm as excited as anyone by the good financial results and am more than normal happy with the mini & shuffle ESPECIALLY their price points, one thing seems slightly troubling. If you look at the details of the quarterly results, you'll see that PowerMac and PowerBook sales are almost tanking. Down 19 and 29%.

In any well run business, product lines that sell less and less units generally are thought to be prime for dropping. Or, priced with huge margins so selling less units means profits for those lines stay up on a percentage basis.

While I applaud the mini, I just am concerned that it may take sales away from the towers. It's now way clear that the new iMac has.

Lately, it seems like Apple uses the macworld show to announce its consumer stuff, and saves the pro stuff for other venues. Don't be surprised to see an update to the powermac/book lines very soon.

I'm not convinced that the 101% gain in iMac/eMac sales is an indication that those sales have eaten into tower sales, causing the 19% drop there.

But, if that were the case, apple would gladly trade 19% of powermac sales for a doubling of iMac sales anyday....

but I don't think its the only thing, powermac sales have been under the 200k per quarter target for a long time, and they did slightly better last year due to pent up G5 demand, but this year, they just didn't have any brilliant product introductions, and they set up a lot of people to expect 3ghz machines...

so they are hurting for not being able to deliver on that, and similarly, the powerbook should be at G5...apple knows this, but there have been difficulties.

I think Apple knows if they meet the technical challenges that these product lines are fine. Indeed they are important to apple, and they won't be dropped. (even if they have a laudable goal of 800,000 powermac towers a year...500,000 a year is not something they will drop).

anyway, the Mac mini may undoubtably allow a few people who would have purchased a tower, to buy a cheaper machine.

but on the other hand, in the longer term, after people get hooked on mac, there will be a lot of people wanting the fastest. a rising tide raises all ships...

Will be expected in the future. Many pros can use consumer level machines and don't need a full tower. The screen resolution has gotten big enough, and they have gotten fast enough.

In the past getting a PowerMac was really the only option. Not any more. I would expect to see lower PowerMac sales and higher iMac sales in the future.

It's not that the Powermac is faltering. I think more people are realizing they don't need a tower and going for the cost and space savings of the iMac.

... are cyclical, just like iMac sales. Did you make the same prediction last year when iMac sales were down and PowerMac sales were up?

The Powerbooks have not been updated in a long time, so too the Towers -- that's the only thing holding them down.

Been trying to tell ya'll for years .. relax, eventually the cream will rise to the top, just keep at it. (and for those who have no idea what this metaphor refers to, do some research on making butter the ol' fashion way ;-)

This may be the start of that, maybe not. But it will happen.

All good things in time.

BC Kelly
Tallahassee Fla
bckelly.com

anybody want to gues how many Ipod shuffles are gona be sold? Apple is allready set to produce 6 million a year for starters...then theres the other Ipods...wow.