So is it a full-blown crisis yet, or does it still need another month to simmer and maybe a pinch of Mrs. Dash? We speak, of course, of the ongoing stagnancy of Apple's PowerBook lineup, which consists of the aluminum twins-- fraternal, apparently-- who are a hair's breadth away from their .67th birthday and their titanium big brother (well, chronologically, anyway; size-wise he's the Peter, but by the calendar he's the Greg) who's pushing ten months old... which is about 140 in PowerBook sales years. Three months ago the missing product update was a "puzzler"; two months ago it was an "annoyance"; last month it was a "problem." So again, what we're trying to determine is whether it yet qualifies as a "crisis," or if it's perhaps jumped a couple of designations and gone straight to "ruinous catastrophe."

Well, according to AppleInsider, one source reportedly describes the situation as a "retail and revenue disaster," but it's currently unknown whether said source is actually a bonded and licensed Bummer Classification Engineer, so we're unsure whether or not that's an official diagnosis. The description seems to fit, though, since AI now reports that Apple is "still scrounging for ample supplies of faster G4 processors," allegedly because of Motorola's continued inability to produce enough chips-- due, according to AtAT sources, to the company's incapacitating preoccupation with the riddle of why Garfield can talk, while Odie speaketh not.

So what's this mean in terms of extending the delay? Well, you know those pessimists who figured on no new PowerBooks before Apple Expo on the 16th? They just became the optimists in this game; according to MacBidouille, an "extremely reliable" source confirms that Motorola still ain't kickin' it PPC 7457-style, at least not in volumes large enough for Apple to launch a product line based around the new G4. At the same time, Apple doesn't want to cut its losses and stick a 7455B-class G4 in the new PowerBooks, because while they have certain advantages over the 7457 (e.g. actually existing in reasonable quantities on this plane of existence), at higher frequencies they chew power at a fierce rate, leading to crappy battery times and enough heat output to flash-roast a buffalo. Hence, barring divine intervention, MacBidouille's source flatly states there will be "no new Apple portable computers before mid-October." But hey, at least that means your Halloween plans to dress up as a blood-caked Steve Jobs with Motorola CEO Chris Galvin's head on a stick will be snazzy and topical.

And there's more good news in all of this; according to AppleInsider, Apple is reportedly so shellshocked over the fact that it actually let itself get blitzed by crippling G4 delays twice in the past four years (remember that "Motorola screwed us on G4 availability" earnings warning back in '99?) that it's "rushing plans to deliver a G5 PowerBook within the first 3 months of the next calendar year." Portable G5 performance in less than seven months' time? Yowza, suddenly we're not in so much of a hurry for those PowerBook G4 updates after all...

"Enough with the kvetching about the PowerBook delays!" you yell. "So Apple has to sell last year's model for a few extra months; what's the big deal?" Well, lookee here, Captain Stubing, this issue goes way beyond just having the latest and greatest or meeting some arbitrary product refresh schedule. You want Apple's market share to rise above its current piddly 3%-or-whatever levels, right? Okay, then-- portable sales are responsible for an ever-increasing chunk of Apple's overall revenue (they were just a hair short of half of all Mac sales last quarter), and with unit shipments on the rise in the first two quarters of this calendar year (and it being the Year of the Notebook and all), PowerBooks are a key player in Apple's fight to win the hearts, minds, and wallets of people in its most important market: People With Money.

See, check it out: faithful viewer mrmgraphics tipped us off to a CNET article about IDC's latest sales data, which shows that last quarter, worldwide notebook sales increased 22.4% from the year before. People With Money are buying portables, and it's obviously in Apple's best interest if as many of those portables as possible are PowerBooks. The good news is, some of them are; Apple took fifth place in the U.S. market, snagging a 7% slice of the pie. And that may not look like much at first glance, but when you consider that it's over twice Apple's share of the personal computer market all around, that 7% starts to look pretty darn good. In other words, at least in the U.S., PowerBooks (and iBooks) are doing twice as well as Macs overall.

And consider this: in the same calendar quarter in which notebook sales grew industry-wide by an impressive 22.4%, Apple's PowerBook sales increased by a staggering 71%. Clearly the aluminum PowerBooks were a huge hit, Apple was way ahead of the industry curve, and if it could just stay there, market share would continue to increase. Unfortunately, in this quarter, our concern is that People With Money might be thinking that the aluminum PowerBooks are starting to look a little tired, and the titanium 15-incher has hobbled right past "tired" to collapse in a ragged heap on top of "Rip Van Winkle's Got Nothin' On Me." (We're hoping the continued presence of the PowerBook in the Apple Store Top Ten indicates that perceptions aren't as bad as all that, but hey, we're worrywarts. It's what we do.)

Even then, perception isn't everything. Whether or not customers are actually willing to buy aging PowerBooks is largely moot, since by most accounts, the retail channel is so dry that people are making jerky in it. Sure, you can still order a PowerBook from the Apple Store and get it in 3-5 business days, but regular People With Money are far more likely to choose a notebook from those in stock at CompUSA or Best Buy, and reportedly that means "anything but a PowerBook." So between reduced supply and reduced demand, you can pretty much bank on PowerBook sales taking a vicious beating this quarter-- maybe even part of next quarter, if the "not until mid-October" rumors turn out to be true.

Alas, there's nothing sadder than lost momentum-- especially since if Apple winds up slipping out of the Top Five when the next quarterly notebook sales numbers show up, it'll probably get eclipsed by the current sixth-place finisher: Gateway. Oh, the horror; how will we face the neighbors? Can somebody please light a small, controlled fire under Motorola's inert hinder so we can all avoid such a tragic fate?

Hey, kids-- it's time for this week's example of what kind of zany anticompetitive stunts you can pull once a five-year-long tussle with the Justice Department leads to nothing more than a slap on the wrist. (Actually, we may be stretching the definition of the word "slap" a little thin, since the settlement was more like a "gentle massage with aromatic oils" on the wrist, but somehow that just doesn't really roll off the tongue.) Earlier today, a trained chimp reached into the Hat of 1,001 Shady Antitrustish Things Happening in Redmond, grabbed a slip at random, sealed the result in an envelope, and locked it in a safe that has since been guarded closely under the watchful eye of a PricewaterhouseCoopers representative. At least, he said he was from PricewaterhouseCoopers, although for some reason he was wearing a tutu and carrying a large frozen mackerel. "For security reasons," he said.

Anyway, the envelope has just been delivered to us by our fish-toting ballerina-dude, and we are now ready to announce this week's winner. The latest Zany Anticompetitive Stunt is...

(...These envelopes are always so hard to open...)

...Digital Rights Management in Microsoft Office documents! Everyone, please, a hearty round of applause for DRM in Office docs! We could've sworn Marisa Tomei would've won, but hey, them's the breaks.

So here's the deal: according to CNET, Office 2003 (working in conjunction with Windows Server 2003) will allow users to specify exactly what other people will be able to do with a given Word or Excel document. You could, for example, prevent your boss from reading your detailed plans to run amok through the company's halls with a large frozen mackerel. You could ensure that no one could copy and paste an excerpt from your 120-page manifesto on Freedom Through Fish-Swinging and pass it off as his own. And we're not positive about the extent to which Microsoft's DRM can control usage of Office documents, but we're pretty sure you could even guarantee that no one could print it out, fry it up, and eat it, either.

Frankly, this actually all sounds pretty good to us. There's clearly a use for a means whereby people who create content can restrict who is allowed to look at, alter, print, reuse, or ingest said content. There's just one "purely accidental" little side-effect to Microsoft's implementation that qualifies as a Zany Anticompetitive Stunt: apparently DRMed Office 2003 documents will be unreadable by anything other than Office 2003-- well, except for Internet Explorer with a plug-in they're working on. But OpenOffice will be out of luck, as will Panther's version of TextEdit, which reportedly opens Word documents just fine-- at least, ones that aren't DRMed in Office 2003. And given the way the wind's blowing with Microsoft development of Mac software, we're a little skeptical that Office 2003 DRM support will be coming to Mac Office anytime soon.

Now, Microsoft insists that DRM is a long way from becoming a default setting in Office; for the time being, companies will actually have to set up Windows Server 2003 and Windows Rights Management Services to use it, and so it'll probably be a while before DRMed Word files are commonplace enough to cause most people any trouble. But at the same time, Microsoft has made it clear that it's got a "wide-ranging plan to make restricted access to information a standard part of business processes." Eventually this may well nuke any and all competing products as woefully incompatible. Quick, somebody call the Justice Department! Oh... right...