Okay, we don't have the data right in front of us, and we're way too lazy to go dig it up just to make sure, but doesn't it seem like every time Apple posts a profit even bigger than Wall Street was expecting, their stock price plummets? That's definitely what happened after the Q1 '99 results came out-- the day after Apple once again beat the Street, AAPL plummeted eleven percent from over $46 to just over $41. That's a strange way to celebrate a comeback. One reason for the sudden decline was one of those pesky analysts had downgraded AAPL from a "buy" to a "neutral." A Reuters story has more on the subject.

The analyst in question is one Richard Gardner of Salomon Smith Barney, who cut his rating on Apple's stock due to concerns about second-quarter performance. As any avid Apple-watcher knows, Q2 is typically Apple's weakest quarter of the year. Gardner specifically expressed "issues" with iMac pricing, claiming that those fabulous Q1 inventory numbers wouldn't have been nearly so good if CompUSA and Best Buy hadn't spent December selling off their iMacs "at a $50 to $60 loss," though CompUSA claims that their overall sales of Apple equipment was profitable during December. And he thinks things are only going to get tougher this quarter, since Intel made too many Celeron chips and so the market will be flooded with cheap PC's. (Yeah, but will those cheap PC's be available in translucent orange? Hah!)

Amazing what one analyst's opinion can do to a stock price, no? Granted, we're guessing a lot of the sell-off was also just people wanting to take their profit and run, since some other analysts disagree with Gardner's analysis and are upgrading AAPL. And it's also worth keeping in mind that $41 is nothing to sneeze at, either, given that just over a year ago the stock was hovering at around $13. Hands up, who else is still kicking themselves for not buying back then?

So from a Macintosh standpoint, you think the Best Buy sales experience generally leaves a lot to be desired, do you? Heck, we'll go further than that-- it stinks. Frankly, we're hard-pressed to see what all the fuss was about with Best Buy leaving the Mac market and then returning to sell the iMac; if anyone can tell us how, exactly, Best Buy of today is any better than Best Buy from the Performa days, we'd really like to know. Okay, we see mild improvements: for one thing, the iMac is actually on display in a somewhat visible section of most stores, as opposed to the Performa which would be buried on the shelf in the back corner. And the iMac is typically actually on, too, which is a switch. But the sales experience itself hasn't changed a bit, as far as we can make out; unless you get very lucky, the sales staff don't know anything about the iMac, and don't care; ask a question, and they'll have to look up the answer-- and it'll probably still be wrong.

But Apple's playing Henry Higgins to Best Buy's Eliza Doolittle, according to MacNN. Reportedly they're "moving aggressively to improve the Best Buy experience" by requiring a minimum of two hours' worth of mandatory training for all Best Buy computer sales personnel. That's a good start. In addition, Apple's trying to bribe said salesfolk with the prospect of free t-shirts and fabulous cash prizes if they correctly answer questions about the iMac. (Rumor has it that all answers must be given in the form of a question, but as of yet that's still unconfirmed.) While Apple's efforts are commendable, four words immediately spring to mind: "silk," "purse," "sow's," and "ear." String 'em together however you want.

Well, we'll give it more time. After all, CompUSA had a very rocky start with its Apple store-within-a-store, and while things there still aren't even close to perfect, we've got to admit they've been improving over the course of the last fifteen months or whatever. The odds of talking to a CompUSA salesperson who actually knows something about Macs-- and who won't instead try to steer you toward a Wintel-- seem to be rising slowly but steadily. Whether or not Best Buy is willing to get its act together is anyone's guess. But, hey! Few problems in this world can't be solved with free t-shirts!

As far as Connectix Virtual Game Station is concerned, we keep waiting for the other shoe to drop-- the legal shoe, that is. As you almost certainly are aware, there are rumors flying all over the place that Sony is preparing to sue Connectix for releasing this software that emulates a Playstation game console. The good news is that so far, those rumors are only rumors, and according to Wired News, no suit has yet been filed. And, in fact, we're a little fuzzy on just what Connectix could be sued for, assuming that Sony believes them when they say that they clean-room reverse-engineered their product and therefore didn't have access to any Sony trade secrets.

VGS itself is still not publicly available, though about three thousand copies were sold on the show floor at last week's Macworld Expo; Connectix claims the product will ship later this month, after some packaging issues are worked out. Our personal guess is that those "packaging issues" are things like, is Sony going to threaten to sue unless Connectix pays a licensing fee? And if a licensing deal is hammered out, then Connectix would be able to put the Playstation name and logo on the VGS box. That sounds like the win-win situation everybody would like to see come about.

As has been pointed out by many, Sony reportedly makes very little-- if any-- money on sales of its $129 consoles, instead raking in the profits on sales of its actual Playstation games. If that's true, then you'd expect Sony would be thrilled to see a product like VGS hit the market; suddenly, there will be thousands more people buying those games, and Sony doesn't have to lift a finger. The only reason we're still at all concerned about a lawsuit is that Sony may feel legally obligated to file suit if only to avoid setting a dangerous precedent that could come back to haunt them if someone really rips them off in the future; they'd have to deal with the "Yeah, but you never went after Connectix when VGS came out, so why are you attacking us now?" factor. We won't know for sure until VGS actually ships, hopefully in a few weeks, but for now it certainly looks like Sony is trying very hard not to file suit against Connectix. We're betting on a licensing deal, and we hope it all gets resolved soon-- we got to see VGS running on a rev. A iMac, and in at least the one game we saw (which was not on Connectix's list of "approved" games), performance was flawless.