August 30th, 1999

[Updated 10:40 PM]
CNBC: "Apple Has New Plans For iMac", Reuters Chimes In Too
[Update 10:40 PM] CNBC reported on the iBook and its potential sales this fall. The TV show also said that Apple's iCEO, Steve Jobs, is expected to roll out new iMacs at this weeks Seybold San Francisco keynote address. The report did not go into details, but did have this to say:

Even though the iMac at US$1200 is priced higher than the average sub US$800 PC, the iMac is still the 3rd highest selling computer this summer.


CNBC (the TV station) is reporting that "Apple has new plans for the iMac." That's a word for word quote. We do not have details yet, though we can assume that they have information on something that will be announced at Seybold.

Over the weekend, Reuters ran a story saying that Apple would be unveiling new products, but covered the concept from a speculative base. According to the report from Reuters:

Steve Jobs, Apple Computer Inc.'s interim chief executive, is expected to announce new products at the Seybold Publishing Conference Tuesday, possibly new iMacs and/or an upgrade for the higher performance Power Macintosh G3, analysts said.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to divulge any details on its plans for Seybold. "We are classifying it as major news," said Rhona Hamilton, a spokeswoman for the Cupertino, Calif.-based company. She declined to be more specific.

Analysts noted that now that Apple has filled in all four areas of its product line, with the launch last month of its new iBook consumer notebook, the company needs to refresh its older product lines such as the popular one-year-old iMac consumer line and the Power Macintosh G3, ahead of Christmas.

"They will have to roll out the iMac platform a little bit pre-Christmas," said Mark Specker, a SoundView Technology Group analyst. "I think the (product) refreshing would be speed-upgrade related or some related upgrade. I wouldn't expect a big change in the form factor."

"The iMac could have FireWire, faster processors, maybe a DVD (digital versatile disk) player, those are the kinds of things people are looking for," said Lou Mazzucchelli, a Gerard Klauer Mattison & Co analyst. "There are a lot of things they could do. But who knows what they are going to do."

We are watching the situation on CNBC very closely and will post an update as soon as we get it.

The Mac Observer Spin: Well it would seem that CNBC has no more specifics than we do on tomorrow's announcements, though many people are bullish on a new iMac announcement. We did get a message this weekend from an anonymous Observer who said we were dead wrong about what we said would be announced:

Your source got it wrong. Way wrong. This is all I can say. See you on Tuesday. Ouch, that will hurt!

~O U T

No way of knowing who this person is or what he or she knows, but he/she does seem to feel that we are wrong. :-)

Tomorrow will be an interesting day to say the least. The Mac Observer will be covering the keynote as it happens.

CNBC