It's an embarrassment of riches, truly... Just think of all the legal activity running rampant in the AtAT universe right now. In the Big Top, Big Bad Microsoft is watching its stock slide as the Department of Justice keeps pounding on them for trying to monopolize the browser market, while Sun is still poking them with the Java stick. In sideshow news, TCI and Power Computing are still involved in their duelling lawsuits about canceled orders and unfulfilled debts related to their ending of the Mac clone business. Oracle is buing sued by its stockholders for stock manipulation. And our beloved star attraction Apple still faces an ongoing suit filed by its own customers, for breach of contract when Apple allegedly reneged on its promise to provide free lifetime technical support. And let's not forget the Lawsuits of AtAT Past, many of which are probably still quietly progressing-- Exponential suing Apple, Apple suing one of its distributors, DEC suing Intel suing DEC, etc. etc. etc.

Could it possibly get any better? Sure! Because as most of you have heard by now, PowerTools has sued Apple and UMAX for $100 million, claiming that both companies have engaged in anti-trust behavior meant to prevent PowerTools from selling Mac clones. ZDNet (and just about everyone else on the planet) has the details. Allegedly, Apple was, shall we say, "concerned" about PowerTools becoming the first vendor to ship G3-based Macs, which they did in a clever way-- they skirted Apple's certification process by shipping certified 604e-based designs, with an Apple-certified G3 upgrade card preinstalled. The result was a G3-fueled Mac clone that probably outperforms the existing Apple-branded Powermac G3s... and the PowerTools models shipped first.

Anyway, the story goes that Apple then told UMAX (with whom PowerTools holds a Mac OS sublicense) to stop providing the certified clones to PowerTools, thus effectively eliminating PowerTools' ability to compete. That's a pretty low blow, if it's true. Apple being sued for anti-trust activity... How's that for a Rod-Serlingesque twist of irony?

Poor Newton-- it always seems to be the whipping boy at Apple. And given Apple's current role as the whipping boy of the industry, that's a pretty tough position, indeed. News.com is reporting that Newton-- once again-- may be deep-sixed or sold off. Is anyone surprised? Not too long ago we heard that Newton would be shut down or sold; then we saw it spun off as a separate company; then we saw it reabsorbed. This is only the next (not-so-)logical step in the process of keeping Newton confused and directionless.

Apparently a "significant" number of Newton employees, fed up with the lack of commitment to their department, have left for the greener pastures of 3Com's PalmComputing division, where they can work on the Pilot, a handheld device that (due primarily to its tiny size and tiny price) sells as well as Apple hoped the Newton MessagePads would. True, the Pilots can't do everything that MessagePads can, but they can come darn close based on what we've seen. Meanwhile, the future of the MessagePad is still hazy, and while Steve Jobs loves the eMate, who knows what'll happen over the next few months?

We at AtAT feel that Newton possibly getting axed is simply no longer news; Newton's been hanging by a thread for years now, so it's the status quo and we've heard it again and again. Apple committing to Newton, publicly and forcefully-- now that would be news. And we think it'd be good news. We're keeping our fingers crossed for an Expo announcement.

Will wonders never cease? Hot on the heels of numerous industry recommendations that AAPL is one to watch, the San Francisco Chronicle has named Apple as their Stock of the Week. In their article, Ken Lim of CyberMedia Convergence Consulting spells it out plain and simple: where else can you buy stock in a multibillion-dollar company for about thirteen bucks a share? Lim believes that Steve Jobs' cost-cutting measures will be effective, the new G3 Macs will win high-end users, and the rumored NC project stands a good chance of finally supplying a low-cost Mac that should appeal greatly to businesses and schools. And even if the stock drops significantly, Apple would be bought; the stock has "nowhere to go but up."

On the other hand, David Coursey, a columnist for Upside magazine, provides a more neutral review, but still recommends that "die-hards" who truly believe in Apple should buy it and take the risk. (Since AtAT falls squarely into that category, we're looking at our budget for 1998 and wondering if we can squeeze some AAPL in there somewhere.) He states that all but the faithful should probably stay way, however, or else they will suffer a "frustrating experience." But he does admit that his "Mac is far superior to [his] Windows machine."

Of course these recommendations don't seem to have done anything to AAPL's actual price, which continues to hover around $13. But Apple stock has proven to be incredibly volatile; in this crazy soap-opera world, another Microsoft-investment type of announcement could double the stock in a day. Who knows what tomorrow brings?