|
"Delays? What Delays?" (1/26/01)
|
 
|
| | |
Maybe it's just us, but we're starting to suspect that whenever Steve Jobs "rallies the troops" for a company-wide meeting, it's less about disseminating information to the staff than it is about leaking additional spin control to the press. After all, he can't possibly think that all of Apple's 7000-odd employees would keep their lips zipped, right? There's always going to be that inevitable blabbermouth (bless his or her gabby soul!) who can't wait to run off and spill the scoop to ZDNet-- and, of course, as faithful viewer Johnny first noted, that's just what happened after yesterday's "confidential" all-hands bull session. So let's take a look at the salient points that Steve wanted us all to learn, shall we? It's the least we can do, after he went to all that trouble.
Probably the most noteworthy bit from our perspective was Steve's reiteration of Apple's intent to return to profitability this quarter. We know, we know-- Fred Anderson said as much during the earnings conference call a week ago, but that was, well, a week ago. Since then we've all noticed the Incredible Lengthening Delivery Times reported at the Apple Store on most of the company's kickin' new gear, such as the PowerBook G4 and the SuperDrive-enabled 733 MHz Power Mac G4; to us, at least, the apparent trouble that Apple is having fulfilling demand for new toys foretells the distinct possibility that the "small profit" promised in April may have already tumbled into oblivion. So to hear even third-hand that Steve is still expecting a profit based on orders for the new Macs is encouraging.
Indeed, Apple's unchanged profit prediction isn't the only mildly surprising news that the status quo is still, uh, status quo-ing. We're assuming that the reason those product delays haven't altered Steve's profit expectations is because, at least according to him, there aren't any product delays; the titanium PowerBook will indeed "begin shipping next week." If the first PowerBook G4 leaves the dock before Thursday, Apple will have officially met Steve's controversial keynote "end of the month" ship date-- and the high-end Power Macs are reportedly "on track" to ship by the end of February, just as he originally promised. Sure, the company may only ship one of each model, but hey, the important thing is that they ship; no one's making a liar out of Steve!
| |
| |
 |
SceneLink (2823)
|  |
 |
|
And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
| | | |
|
| |
|
 | | The above scene was taken from the 1/26/01 episode: January 26, 2001: Uncle Steve has another intimate tête-à-tête with... er... all 7,000 Apple employees. Meanwhile, Microsoft's sites go down again, this time due to a denial-of-service attack, and a hot new film at Sundance was produced entirely with digital camcorders and Macs...
Other scenes from that episode: 2824: "Cosmic Rays" Is Taken, Too (1/26/01) Originally we figured that the comedy of errors known publicly as the Microsoft web site outage was a simple movie of the week, but no-- evidently it's a multi-part miniseries instead. Yesterday we told you how Microsoft copped to the fact that a "staff error" brought the family of Microsoft web sites to its virtual knees for nearly a full twenty-four-hour period, which must have been incredibly embarrassing for the company that most less-educated mortals probably consider to be the Supreme Ruler of the high-tech universe... 2825: A Million New Spielbergs (1/26/01) You know how Apple's been setting the stage for the next great computing revolution to rival the impact of desktop publishing? The first step was iMovie, that marvelous application that turns a digital camcorder and a FireWire-equipped Mac into an inexpensive, easy, and fun video-editing studio...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
|
|
