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Our Cup Runneth Over (5/6/98)
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Of course, though it's easy to forget, the iMac wasn't the only thing that happened today. There was, as expected, the formal rollout of the new Powerbook G3's, formerly known as Wall Street and Main Street, available for order at the Apple Store and at fine Apple-authorized dealers near you. In the words of Uncle Steve, "they eat Pentium notebooks for lunch." Some of you have already seen the fold-out ad for these new laptops appearing in magazines hither and thither; in addition, we're told to expect a new "Think Different" television ad in the next three or four weeks called "Steamroller," which will focus on the new Powerbooks' superiority over the Wintel competition. (Use your imagination. The violent part of it.)
Also as expected, Apple today unveiled the new Apple Store for educational buyers, which brings build-to-order and convenient purchasing to those Mac folk still doing time in the schools. Disappointingly, there was apparently no mention of build-to-order for VARs, though an AtAT source claims that this capability will arrive on or about May 23rd. If and when that happens, authorized dealers will be able to custom-configure Macs for their customers, instead of being restricted to shipping Apple's pre-boxed flavors. We're keeping our fingers crossed on this one.
And finally, there's one more point we thought was worth mentioning: Apple's stock is currently higher than it's been for at least a year, shooting past the record set last August, when Microsoft's $150 million investment in Apple boosted the stock price up to a short-lived spike of 29 3/4. Today AAPL closed at 30 5/16 on heavy volume, indicating that Wall Street liked what Jobs had to say. (A concrete commitment to the consumer market was exactly the missing piece of the Apple strategy puzzle, in our opinion; apparently Wall Street agrees.) Conventional wisdom among investor- and analyst-types seems to be that 30 is some sort of magic number in the stock market-- once a stock breaks 30, it supposedly indicates a healthy optimism in the company which feeds on itself, sending the price even higher. Let's hope this lasts. Man, suppose we'll see another day like this in the Mac world anytime soon? How about May 11th and WWDC? We can but hope.
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 5/6/98 episode: May 6, 1998: Say hello to the iMac, who'll be joining the cast this August, filling the long-vacant role of "low-cost consumer Macintosh." Meanwhile, try not to stare, but it's hard not to notice that the iMac is missing some, er, "crucial parts;" to distract yourself, take a gander at the lovely and talented new Powerbooks that just joined the lineup, or amuse yourself with the upwardly-mobile antics of Apple's stock price...
Other scenes from that episode: 679: iMac, uMac, We All Mac... (5/6/98) Well! Quite an exciting day, eh? We never imagined that Apple would make an announcement that would totally overshadow the introduction of the new Wall Street Powerbooks. We're speaking, of course, of the iMac, the goofy-looking new consumer Macintosh due this August, whose color scheme reminds us a little too much of Aqua-Fresh toothpaste... 680: Farewell to the Floppy (5/6/98) All in all, the iMac has some very interesting omissions from its spec sheet. Since it's a super-cheap consumer machine, we suppose that leaving out the PCI slots isn't all that incongruous, though it seriously affects the iMac's viability as a game machine, as it can't be upgraded with a 3D acceleration card...
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