CompuServe Messages

> And you can buy a Pentium 90 system with a larger drive (but no bundled software) for $1,625. A Pentium 90 for under $2,000? that must be a sight. Only recently has the 66Mhz gone under $2,000! (resonable national brand) What vender please. Which ad? Even Gateway 2000 costs much more than that, and they are a mid level brand. It is very unfair to compare the cheapest put together import clone with a name brand. Everyone agrees you get what you pay for. I've even seen reports in the PC mags showing that a very good 486/66 from IBM can outperform the poorest 60Mhz Pentium machines because they are just junk. > Their R&D expenses are also higher. Having 8 to 14% market share doesn't > mean much if you can't turn a profit. Last quarter Apple had the _highest_ margins in the industry, being slightly ahead of Compaq. Other than Compaq, almost all clone venders live on a tiny percent. Apple made 25% profit per dollar sold. About 1% higher than Compaq. >Finally, Apple's sales are not increasing each quarter: they've been up and down > like a yo-yo in recent years, although the last two quarters have been up. Looked okay to me! (I read the annual stock holders report just today) > Not quite. Some models (such as the PowerBook 540c) are in chronically short > supply, while others (the PowerMac 6100) sit in unsold stacks at their warehouses. Not true. The 6100 is the best selling model they have. It sells more than any other single machine in there line. It outsells the other PPC machines 2:1. > Apple has one of the worst records for consistently failing to match production with demand. Very true. It scares me to think they might not survive exactly because of the R&D comment you made. Packard Bell does "okay", but don't spend a dime on improving the system. They buy commodidy parts and slap them together. The only real R&D is IBM, Microsoft, Compaq, and Apple. People have been predicting their death for a decade. Eventually they might be right. I think it really bothers people to see a company try a different approach and do a few billion dollars a year of business while at it.