Today's News On One Page
September 20th, 1999
| [4:40 PM] Apple's Stock Down 10+ Points In After Hours Trading by Bryan Chaffin Apple's stock has fallen 10 9/16 points in after hours trading according to CNBC's Market Wrap as of 4:40 PM. Trading was halted earlier on news that Apple would miss earnings estimates in the 4th quarter due to G4 shortages from Motorola. After trading was resumed, Apple immediately tanked by more than 10 points or some 13%, a whopping decline. The Mac Observer Spin: Our take is that Apple just became a great bargain again. Apple may continue to fall again tomorrow, but the fundamentals behind the company are still very strong. Failure to deliver back ordered G4s is not a good thing by any stretch of the imagination, but with 150,000 back ordered, this means that Apple's 1st fiscal quarter will be remarkably good. Within a few of days Wall Street is likely to have forgotten this unpleasantness and Apple will no doubt begin to head back up. |
| [4:15 PM] Apple Stock Watch: Apple Closes At Record High Before Issuing Earnings Warning by Bryan Chaffin Apple closed at yet another new all-time high today as Wall Street reacted favorably to news that Apple had won its first round in the battle against iMac knockoff SOTEC. Apple closed at 79 1/16, a gain of 2 1/8 or another 2.76%. Volume was moderately heavy with 4,076,400. Symantec and Adobe both closed higher as Adobe continues to reap the rewards of a record quarter and a 2-for-1 stock split announced last week. Macromedia closed lower. On the PC front, only Intel had a down day while IBM, Microsoft, Dell, Gateway 2000, Hewlett-Packard, and Compaq all closed higher. The Dow and the Nasdaq both closed slightly higher with the Dow closing at 10823.90 a gain of 20.27, and the Nasdaq closing at 2886.15, a gain of 16.53. After the closing bell, Apple announced an Earnings Warning based on shortages of the G4 from Motorola. For full quotes for all the companies mentioned in this article, we have assembled this set of quotes at Yahoo! We also have these quotes reported live (20 minute delay) on our home page. For other stories regarding Apple's stock activity, visit our Apple Stock Watch Special Report. |
| [3:50 PM] Apple Issues Warning That G4 Shortage Will Hurt Q4 Results by Bryan Chaffin CNBC's Marketwrap TV program is reporting that Apple has issued a report saying that G4 shortages from Motorola will have a significant impact on Apple's 4th Quarter results. Apple's 4th Quarter ends on September 30th. Apple's statement also said it had received substantial orders for the G4 but that the company would be unable to meet that demand. The overall impact will be that Apple will see lower sales for the 4th quarter of this year when compared to the 4th quarter of last year. This mars Apple's stellar financial performance since the return of Steve Jobs in 1997. It is unclear whether Apple will actually be able to post a profit despite the bad news. Apple hit a record close to day of 79 1/16 on news of the court victory over SOTEC in the battle for the eOne. Apple's trading was halted in after hours trading on the news, though trading should resume shortly. The Mac Observer Spin: Hard on the heels of whispered rumors that the 4th quarter would be blow out quarter, it looks as if Apple may in fact actually see a decrease in performance for the first time in 2 years. This is devastating news for Apple's stock which has been hitting record after record in recent trading. Could this be Motorola's revenge for canceling cloning? Though undoubtedly not intended since it also hurts Motorola's financial performance, it is an ironic situation. Hopefully Motorola will be able to iron out G4 production problems soon. |
| [2:15 PM] Direct From France - Integrating Macs In A PC Environment. by Philippe Bogdan For this year's Apple Expo "SVM Mac" put out a special issue featuring Christophe Conte, the man in charge of organizing this event. Christophe Conte proudly announced that over 30% more people than last year applied for a free entry card beforehand (either on the Net or by filling out and sending a page from a computer magazine). This lead to an attendance of over 90 000 people this year : "As far as numbers are concerned, the Paris Apple Expo is catching up with San Francisco MacWorld Expo." What is sure is that the exhibition hall was again very crowded today. I also have to state that the organization of the event was exemplary, and coming from a French man it's a real compliment, believe me :-) One of the most interesting conferences today was "Integrating Macintosh computer in another environment." The conference was attended by a fair amount of corporate executives who work on a Macintosh computer in a PC network. The conference was handled very well by an Apple France network specialist and the emphasis was put on mainly two products : Dave from Thursby System software which is translated and distributed in France by ALSYD, and Microsoft Office 98. DAVE is an easy to use TCP/IP based application, written for the Macintosh using a NetBIOS driver (that support WINS, Windows Internet Name Server). With DAVE, Macintosh users can access, read and write files on PCs without having to download the files on the Mac or use Microsoft Office 98 for the Mac or Virtual PC with PC applications for example. Microsoft Office 98, itself being fully compatible with Office for the PC, also makes things easier. With DAVE, both PCs and Macs can forget about their difference on an Intranet or Internet Network. Why is it so important? Because the corporate world in France still doesn't take Macintosh seriously in the "real" world of computers. Macintosh users are often consider to be eccentric in most offices. Because of this it is really important for their integration in the company network to be flawless and transparent. I am personally convinced that Apple should stress compatibility and network transparency, if only to make life easier for Macintosh users in this environment. For the European market, this is vital for Apple to gain significant market share. Offering the same quality training that we got at this conference today to network administrators at French companies could help too, I think. The other great news concerns another group of people using Macintosh computer as their primary tools: professional musicians. Creamware - maker of Triple DAT audio-sequencer on PC - announced the Macintosh beta version of their powerful PULSAR audio software. PULSAR is actually a combination of a PCI card with 4 SHARC DSP boards and software including a complete modular audio environment, mixer, effects, samplers, and synthesizers. It has been available for the PC for a while and is now being tested with major Macintosh audio and MIDI software. PULSAR was actually running on Pentium II 400 at the Apple Expo, but the Mac version is said to look and feel similar. I'll try to bring you more information on this products and other music software tomorrow after attending the conference on "Using Macintosh computer of Music." Philippe Bogdan lives and work in France. His exclusive coverage of The Apple Expo comes direct from Paris. |
| [Column] The Back Page - What's brewing in Cupertino? |
| [Column] The Apple Trader - AAPL's Rise: Perception Is Everything |
| [10:30 AM] Apple Scores First Victory Against iMac Knockoffs by Bryan Chaffin In a surprisingly quick action by US standards, Apple has won their first victory in the battle against iMac knockoffs. Apple had filed suit against SOTEC, the Asian maker of the e-one which is marketed in the US by eMachines under the moniker of eOne, in Tokyo seeking to block shipment of the computer. Today, Apple announced that an injunction had been granted by a court in Japan that temporarily halts shipments of the e-one. According to Apple:
We have pictures of the eOne, or e-one depending on the market from which you are buying taken in Japan. The Mac Observer Spin: This is a far reaching decision won by Apple in that it effectively short circuits not only SOTEC, but eMachines and Circuit City, the sole American retailer of the eOne, without help from US courts. Observers in Japan have reported to us that Japanese courts have been taking a tough stance on trademark and copyright issues for some time now, and today's decision indicates that Apple made a good call by trying to head SOTEC off at the source. Please keep in mind that this is a temporary decision as the companies prepare to go to trial. Also, it does nothing to effect supplies of the eOne that have already been shipped to the US. That would take direct action by a US court. In any event, this is good news for Apple. For that matter, it is good news for any company that has invested effort and resources in designing original concepts. There are some who think that Apple has some nerve in complaining about someone trying to steal their ideas, mainly because of the origination of the GUI at Xerox, but these people fail to take notice of the fact that Apple has effective permission to use those ideas in the first place. In the case of SOTEC and Future Power, the other iMac knockoff company, they did not have permission to bower Apple's look. |
| [Column] Monday's Mac Gadget--Maximize your Mac MP3 Collection with MacP3 |
| [8:30 AM] AuctionMac.com Holding Contest With 15 Prizes In 15 Days by Kyle D'Addario AuctionMac.com is holding a contest giving away 15 prizes in 15 days. AuctionMac.com was the first Macintosh only auction site. According to AuctionMac.com:
The contest kicks off on September 17th, and runs for 15 business days. You can find more information at the company's web site. |
| [8:30 AM] Recipe Database Program Recieves Update by Kyle D'Addario Inaka Software has released version 2.0 of their recipe database software, Computer Cuisine Deluxe. This application allows Macintosh users to organize and store recipes in an easy to search database format. According to Inaka Software:
You can find more information about Computer Cusine Deluxe 2.0 at the Inaka website. The product is priced at US$15.00. |
| [8:30 AM] MacOS RAID Software Made OS 9 Ready by Kyle D'Addario The MacOS RAID utility SoftRAID has been upgraded to version 2.2 and been made OS 9 compatible. RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) solutions are used to speed up disk intensive tasks such as file serving, database operation, and any other task where optimal disk performance is a must. SoftRAID 2.2 will be a required upgrade for Observers using previous versions of SoftRAID who intend on upgrading to OS 9 when it is released. According to SoftRAID:
SoftRAID is priced at US$149, and upgrades from any previous version of Apple RAID or SoftRAID 1.5 or earlier are $99. For those using later versions, this upgrade is free. You can find more information can be found at the SoftRAID web site. |
| [8:30 AM] New Resource For Mac ISPs Launched by Kyle D'Addario A Mac only ISP information list has been created, targeted at Macintosh users running some sort of internet related service. This is a new mail list, and thus activity levels are unknown. To subscribe, send an e-mail message containing the command: subscribe macisp-talk to [email protected]. The Lists organizer's have also provided an archive. |
| [8:30 AM] Amateur Radio Operations Tool Gets Update by Kyle D'Addario Black Cat Systems has released an update to MultiMode, their decoding utility designed to help amateur radio operators. The new version, 2.6.1, is a maintenance release that includes bug fixes. According to Black Cat Systems:
MultiMode 2.6.1 is available immediately from the Black Cat Systems site. Pricing was not made available to The Mac Observer at this time. For more information on MultiMode, please visit the Black Cat Systems web site. |