The ever-watchful MacCentral has noted an interesting tidbit on the MacWorld Expo web site. If you take a look at the Keynote page for the January show, you'll notice a reference to "an insightful presentation by Apple's yet unnamed CEO." So the question is, are they assuming? After all, Apple's been saying forever that the new CEO would be chosen by the end of the year. It only makes sense that he or she would deliver the January keynote, possibly immediately after being announced. But it's certainly also possible that MacWorld isn't assuming-- they may know something that the rest of us don't.

More and more, we at AtAT are regretting not being able to switch coasts for the event (despite Bungie's non-appearance). We hope that some of our faithful viewers will be attending, and can keep us up to date on the juicy points.

Our own Boston Globe has an article that is primarily a profile of Dell Computer, but is of interest to Applewatchers for its analysis of the pros and cons of the build-to-order paradigm.

Dell's success story is legendary; as the pioneer of the build-to-order computer business, they haved increased their value a whopping 20,000% since 1990, all without building a single retail store. The benefits of their build-as-you-go system include lower inventory costs, zero reliance on channel resellers, and quicker delivery of new technologies to the customer. Apple can soon reap all of these same benefits, if they play their cards right with the Apple Store. (Imagine: an Apple without an inventory problem. It staggers the imagination, doesn't it?)

Incidentally, Apple is conspicuously missing from the author's list of computer companies who have come to embrace the build-to-order strategy, though that's unsurprising, since the author is none other than longtime Apple-basher Hiawatha Bray; we're surprised he didn't just say "Apple's doing this, too, but they're bound to fail." But regardless, Apple would do well to heed the warning set forth by examples such as Gateway 2000, who, despite having the same business strategy as Dell, posted a $107 million loss last quarter. (Should we call them "beleaguered" Gateway 2000?) The trick is in amassing the right quantities of the right parts, and Apple is notoriously poor at forecasting demand. Here's hoping they get it right.

And in the "It's Sunday So Here's Something Totally Unrelated" news, have you heard about Mattel going after unauthorized Barbie sites? ZDNet's got the bizarre, though strangely compelling, story... and it raises some interesting points about culpability on the 'net, and how the lawyers haven't quite caught up yet.

See, instead of contacting web site authors and requesting that material be removed, Mattel's been sniping Barbie sites by pointing their lawyers at the ISP's who host the pages. That seems misdirected, if not downright rude and more than a little slimy. But the real hoot is, even though one ISP in question complied and had the "Distorted Barbie Site" taken down, the 'net works in mysterious ways; mirrors of the original site are popping up like weeds, all over the web. You can see one of them for yourself here, or track the progress of this amusing demonstration of legal circuity at the Daily Barbie. If the lawyers insist on sending cease and desist orders to the ISP's, each time they shut one site down, another will spring up.

We love it when conventional methods break down. ;-)