Over the past few hours Internet news sites including CNET’s   Analysts: iMac woes mean “tight” quarter have rushed to screen several reports on purported iMac shortages and expectations that Steve Jobs will make a major announcement concerning the issue at MacWorld Tokyo.

Apple is racing against time to deliver iMacs before the end of the quarter. They must also consider whether or not to make an announcement before the end of the quarter and the start of the “quiet period” in which the company cannot make financial announcements prior to the release of quarterly financial reports in mid-April.

This isn’t a situation in which Steve Jobs needs to play “spin doctor.” However, it’s a situation in which he must adequately detail the prescription management will use to remedy the iMac shortage malady.

Long-term AAPL watchers will remember the stock’s roller coaster ride in late-summer 1999 when Apple announced it could not meet demand for G4s until the following quarter. Alas, long-term AAPL shareholders will remember the overnight halving of AAPL’s stock price in fall 2000 when Apple announced it would substantially miss expectations for the quarter and record a huge loss. Much of the loss was due to payments to suppliers because Apple could not meet contracted minimum orders requirements.

What I admire most about Apple’s extraordinary management team isn’t the fact that they don’t make mistakes. What I admire most is that this management team tends to learn from their mistakes. The good news is that whatever Steve Jobs may announce at MacWorld Tokyo is much more similar to the events surrounding Apple’s 1999 G4 announcement than the fall 2000 bloodletting in AAPL stock. Demand for Apple’s products is not the problem. The quarter in which the sales will be recorded is the issue of the day.

As Ahnyer Keester pointed out in his   What is so stinking *magic* about $25? thread in the AFB Forum and I have repeatedly mentioned in   AFB’s Apple Daily Stock Updates Thread , the reported delays in Apple’s ability to ship the new iMacs is putting pressure on the stock and most likely keeping it from convincingly breaking through the upside $25.00 per share barrier.

Learning from past mistakes, I expect Steve Jobs to not only acknowledge Apple’s challenges in shipping the new iMacs in quantities to satisfy demand, but also provide clear and convincing information about how the challenges are being addressed and a definitive timetable for the shipment of iMacs to resellers and consumers.

Provided that Steve Jobs and Apple’s management team are able to provide clear and convincing information on unit sales, production backlogs and revised estimates for both the March and June-ending quarters, any weakness in AAPL immediately following the announcements may present a nice opportunity for investors and institutions to add AAPL to their portfolios.

Robert

edited to fix links
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Please visit   TMO’s Apple Finance Board Forum early and often!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Bryan on 2002-03-18 22:33 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: DawnTreader on 2002-03-19 00:18 ]</font>

If the iMac shortage is cause by not enough LCD screens, then why not release a model without one?  The limited 1024 x 768 resolution is the main reason I’m not buying an iMac.  I’d look seriously at one that could work with low cost CRT monitors that can go higher.

Ouch! Bad answer!

An iMac without a screen is…something else entirely.

Consumer confusion is not a good thing. Especially for a consumer-oriented computer.

On 2002-03-19 14:58, Anonymous wrote:
If the iMac shortage is cause by not enough LCD screens, then why not release a model without one? 

i know this shouldn’t be funny, but i keep getting the weirdest ideas of what a headless iMac would look like. 

On 2002-03-19 16:56, iShadow wrote:
i know this shouldn’t be funny, but i keep getting the weirdest ideas of what a headless iMac would look like. 

I couldn’t say for sure, but I’d expect it would look something like this:

And you can strap two of them to your chest to have portable cluster computing.

Now there’s a market few have considered I just wish the author of such an interesting idea would have first taken a moment to register their name

You’ll never get my name!  I’ve got so many passwords stuffed into my brain that I’ve got no room for a name!  You’ll never catch me HA HA HA HA!!!!!!

- Algr

Now that’s funny!

Maybe I could use one of those as a cycle helmet - all I need to do is make my head really big.

I think this thread is getting a little off topic….

no, no, this is the ‘new’ product that will be announced at macworld!!

You can see AAPL already rising because of these “hot new” product rumors…

On 2002-03-19 21:03, Anonymous wrote:
And you can strap two of them to your chest to have portable cluster computing.

The iMplant?

On 2002-03-20 12:19, KitsuneStudios wrote:

On 2002-03-19 21:03, Anonymous wrote:
And you can strap two of them to your chest to have portable cluster computing.

The iMplant?

 

rotflmao!!!!!!

*that’s*  why there’s all that black cloth draped over the Apple booths in Tokyo!!!  (article in Wired that Gina pointed out in another forum)

The announcement in Tokyo by Steve Jobs that Apple has shipped 125,000 iMacs and is now shipping 5,000 units per day should satisfy concerns about a unit shipment shortfall for the quarter. 

The demand for the new iMac is so strong that the company has chosen to increase prices rather than cheapen components or reduce product features, when faced with quickly rising component costs.

How the rise in component costs has impacted Apple’s margins in the current quarter will be revealed next month during the company’s quarterly conference call with analysts.

Based on today’s announcements, I don’t expect Apple to issue earnings advisory prior to release of its quarterly results.  Apple’s ability to secure components at originally planned prices may have been a major contributor to the delay in shipping the new iMacs.

Apple has wisely chosen to increase prices in order to maintain a flow of product than face further production delays or be forced to cheapen the quality of its product.