🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4dmsi7$ibv@malasada.lava.net>, cshink@lava.net (Cy K.
Shinkawa) wrote:


> Business Analysts are calling the the recent developments at Apple the
beginning of a "downward
> irreversable death spiral".  There are things they can do to slow it
down, but Apple's demise as
> we know it is inevitable.  The top corporate guys who had the chance to
jump ship have already 
> done so.  Apple announced inital layoffs of about 1200 people, with much
more to come in the
> next few months.  They will abandon the low-end market to the
Mac-clones.  They will probably be
> bought out by someone like Sony, and remain a niche player in the
computer market as a high-end
> graphics machine.

Business analysts generally don't know anything about running companies.
They're herd animals.

Apple has record sales. 
1995 was a very profitable year (their second best ever, I believe).
Apple has $1.1 billion in cash.
Apple is #1 in customer satisfaction.
Apple is consistently one of the top 3 brands world wide.
Apple has an overwhelming market share in several key niches (as much as
60-70% for publishing and education, for example).
Apple technologies are beginnning to see wider acceptance (i.e. Microsoft
is adopting FireWire, many key players are committed to PPCP, QuickDraw
3D, and so on).

If you really believe that this is the profile of a company in trouble,
you really need to stay away from business.

> 
> Intel and Microsoft are dominating the market purely on brute force, not
on the technical merits
> of their products, I am sad to say.  I think the future of RISC is with
Microsoft, developing a
> Windows version to run on that machine, or IBM finishing their
PowerPC/Windows project, which
> they have shelved.

What PowerPC Windows project is shelved? The PPCP spec is finalized and a
large number of companies are committed to it. WinNT runs on PReP boxes
now, making it run on PPCP boxes should be trivial.

> 
> With the introduction of the P6's, I think machines will eventually
start to be shipped with
> WinNT.  Gates always said that Win95 was an interim system.  Why call
something Windows95 and
> introduce it at the end of the year??

Except that this isn't happening in any quantity. Even with Gates telling
businesses they should be buying WinNT, NT sales were way below 1 million
last year (according to IDC).

> 
> Purely speculation on my part:  Could Microsoft's domanance lead to the
government calling it a
> monopoly, like the ATT, and somehow break it up, or call it some kind of
utility and regulate
> it?

This has been debated endlessly. It _could_ happen and the government has
the authority to do so if they find that Microsoft's policies are
anti-competitive. Whether they will actually find this is an open
question.

-- 
Regards,       Joe Ragosta

Copyright Joseph M. Ragosta, 1995. Non-exclusive, royalty free license to distribute this post granted to any service provider except Microsoft. Fee for Microsoft is $1,000 per posting.