info-mac@utcsrgv.UUCP (info-mac) (04/26/84)
Date: 22 Apr 1984 18:07:01-EST
From: uw-beaver!Hans.Moravec@CMU-RI-ROVER
Subject: Apple Stock
To: utcsrgv!peterr
To: microsof!infomac
n508 1839 21 Apr 84
BC-DARBY-04-22
By Edwin Darby
(c) 1984 Chicago Sun-Times (Independent Press Service)
Savvy investors, or maybe eternally optimistic investors, have been
bidding up the price of Apple Computer's stock.
A week ago, the stock, traded over-the-counter, climbed $2.25 to
close the week at $25.75 a share. By Wednesday of last week, the
stock was priced at $28.
Not bad when it is remembered that not too long ago, some stock
market analysts were picking Apple as one of the dozens of computer
companies that would not survive the great washout in the overcrowded
industry.
Not a bad performance at all considering Apple's near-disasters with
its Apple III computer, its advanced-technology Lisa, and its false
starts in trying to get its new personal computer, the Macintosh, off
the factory floor and to the retailers.
Not bad for a company that has just told stockholders that its
profit plummeted 62 percent in the quarter ended March 30 from the
year-ago mark.
The idea is that the worms in the Apple can be taken care of. The
old Apple II in the improved Apple IIe version is selling very well;
demand is strong for the also-improved Lisa 2; and now, apparently,
the production snafus with the Macintosh have been solved and the
trouble is a healthy one: the company can't turn them out fast enough
to keep up with demand.
If the profits so far are slim, the sales are there to produce cash.
In the just-ended quarter, sales increased by 32 percent.
What's most interesting is that the Macintosh now looks like a
winner, a machine that can take on IBM's PC. It is getting some rave
reviews.
Here's something from a report by Norman Nicholson, editor of
''Computerized Investing,'' a publication of the stockholder
education organization, the American Association of Individual
Investors.
''Just a few months ago, I was writing that the IBM PC was the
dominant force in the microcomputer industry and that the rest of the
manufacturers could only hope to get on the bankwagon with the
introduction of 'clones' of the IBM PC.
''Now, with the introduction of the Apple Macintosh, the market
outlook has completely changed. The ball is now in IBM's court.
''To my mind, the new Apple Macintosh represents the future of
personal computing.''
Nicholson goes on to praise a number of Macintosh innovations in
technology, made possible incidently by Motorola's 68000
microprocessor, and to shout about how easy it is to use the
Macintosh, distinctly not an IBM copy.
''User-friendly'' is, of course, the hottest of buzzwords or phrases
in the industry, and every company is working hard to make its
product easier to use. Supposedly, IBM, probably with more talent and
brain under one roof or a few dozen roofs than any other company, has
new versions of its personal computer and software in the works.
In fact, the IBM PC is easy to use. For the novice hoping to use a
computer at home or facing the desktop unit for the first time at the
office, the problem is in not using the machine, but in understanding
how. That's true for just about anything, including the simplest
computer - the abacus.
The IBM instruction manual for word-processing - typing words - is a
caution; for complication and belying the name of the software
program, Easy Writer, it beats any set of intsructions for putting
together a child's toy.
As a corporate systems manager charged with training says, ''To
defeat the IBM instruction manual, you must get out an old-fashioned
pencil and wade through the pages ferreting out the information you
need and writing it down.''
That takes a little doing. The manual contains 14 chapters plus six
appendixes, nearly 200 pages. With the exception of two or three
incomprehensible pages, any one page is clear enough with
concentration. But what the novice may need to complete a simple and
friendly ''use'' may be hidden in Chapter 3, Chapter 11 and Chapter
8-in that order.
The computer geniuses who wrote the manual make an annoying effort
to be friendly. Ever so often they drop in a chummy phrase like,
''Let's review what you have learned in this lesson.''
You can hear your grade school teacher saying, ''Now, children,
let's review ....''
END
nyt-04-21-84 2130est
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