Mac to go below $500?

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Agathon

He made a mistake. Stock analysts only know about the market and nothing else, not about how the actual company is doing (enron anyone?).

They all made a mistake then, since they all put Apple on "buy".

But of course, it's a conspiracy.

On the other hand, you come off better than Asher in this thread. But not by much.

And what was happening with Enron? It was on buy until they realized how it was jipping millions.

Apple is losing market share. That's a fact. It has inferior machines with inferior quality. The only thing that bailed it out recently was sales of the ipod. If it wasn't for the Ipod, Apple would be filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy. It wouldn't cease to exist, but it would be broke. It is also an established fact that Mac G5s are inferior to AMD/Intel based machines. The G5 doesn't even lead in Photoshop anymore. It fell behind.

[Agathon]

If it wasn't for the Ipod, Apple would be filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Um... I take it you didn't read Apple's last earnings submission. They still make most of their money from computer sales (by a large margin).

If you are going to bash Apple, you might at least do it properly.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Agathon

If it wasn't for the Ipod, Apple would be filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Um... I take it you didn't read Apple's last earnings submission. They still make most of their money from computer sales (by a large margin).

If you are going to bash Apple, you might at least do it properly.

It doesn't matter if they make most of their money from computer sales. What matters is if they can cover their operating costs. And I'm bashing Apple right and it's declining 2% market share, that'll probably be to about 1% this year.

[Agathon]

It doesn't matter if they make most of their money from computer sales. What matters is if they can cover their operating costs. And I'm bashing Apple right and it's declining 2% market share, that'll probably be to about 1% this year.

None of that necessarily has anything to do with Apple's financial health. The company is making money, and would be making money even without ipod sales. That's all that matters. They've been selling roughly the same amount of computers for years.

You can push forward marketshare statistics all you like, but none of that necessarily means that Apple is going out of business, or getting out of the computer industry.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Agathon

It doesn't matter if they make most of their money from computer sales. What matters is if they can cover their operating costs. And I'm bashing Apple right and it's declining 2% market share, that'll probably be to about 1% this year.

None of that necessarily has anything to do with Apple's financial health. The company is making money, and would be making money even without ipod sales. That's all that matters. They've been selling roughly the same amount of computers for years.

You can push forward marketshare statistics all you like, but none of that necessarily means that Apple is going out of business, or getting out of the computer industry.

The company may be making money but not enough to cover operating costs.

Apple isn't getting out of the computer industry sure, but it is falling behind in technology when it comes to their computers. The G5 though decent, is nothing compared to the AMD Athlon 64.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Ok, all I've read in this thread from the Mac bashers since I last posted in this thread is more mindless trolls, as usual.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Mr. Nice Guy
Ok, all I've read in this thread from the Mac bashers since I last posted in this thread is more mindless trolls, as usual.

You are the person who makes people want to buy Celeron based PCs. In nerd talk, that's an extreme insult. I hope Ming doesn't ban me.

[Agathon]

The company may be making money but not enough to cover operating costs.

It is. I actually bothered listening to Apple's last quarter results call. They are selling plenty of notebooks and powermacs, but less imacs (presumably because people were waiting for the imac G5).

Apple is in robust financial health. The stock was up over 200% this last year. Some analysts have claimed that it might even rise to $100 a share in the next year. That would be a 400% rise in less than two years. Since the majority of Apple's revenue still comes from computer systems, I find your comments ridiculous.

It's fair to make claims about various problems that Apple might have, but in the light of the actual facts, it is just silly to claim that they are doomed.

What makes it even sillier is that people have been claiming the same for more than 15 years now. Saying Apple is doomed must be one of the most popular themes in technology journalism. I imagine that tech journos with nothing on the table automatically think "well... time for another Apple is ****ed story."

Apple isn't getting out of the computer industry sure, but it is falling behind in technology when it comes to their computers. The G5 though decent, is nothing compared to the AMD Athlon 64.

Apple doesn't make the G5 chip, IBM does. It's exactly the same chip that Microsoft is going to use in the next generation XBox. IBM has been tardy at delivering faster chips. That's hardly Apple's fault and I don't see it continuing for much longer. IBM's old G3 chip was pretty good and had a long operational life in macs. Hell, my mac has a G3 chip and it still manages to run all the software I need it to with more than acceptable performance 5 years down the track. That's pretty good value for a computer that I paid less than $1000 US dollars for nearly five years ago. A computer that has run reliably that whole time without ever once needing to be taken in for repairs. A computer that I have never had to erase and reinstall the OS on (I did have to reinstall it a couple of years ago when I bought a bigger hard drive). A computer that has never suffered from a virus or malware attack.

Why would I want to spend good money on a Windows based system that to make competitive I would have to build myself. My time is worth more than the difference. Not having a computer that is loaded up with crapware by the manufacturer is also something I value.

More to the point, having a computer that my wife cannot break, wreck or render inoperable is certainly worth hundreds of dollars to me. If you knew what she was like with computers, you would esteem Apple highly for being able to create such a machine.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
They all made a mistake then, since they all put Apple on "buy".

But of course, it's a conspiracy.

Who said anything about a conspiracy?

Of course they'd all put Apple as a "buy" -- look at the amount of hype behind the iPod there is, driving Apple's share price and deluding it's P/E.

"stock analysts" exist when to tell you to buy and sell shares. It makes sense to buy Apple shares right now, just like it made sense to buy dot-com shares in the late 90s.

They are not good sources for information about market trends, or even company value. Stock analysts exist to measure the hype and predict if a stock will rise or fall, and as the dot-com burst and other companies have shown, this rarely has much to do with what the company's actually up to.

I'm not saying it's a conspiracy or that they're morons, just that they're people who exist to say when to buy and sell. And when a company is being hyped up, you can bet its stock will rise, and give it a "buy" recommendation.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
It is. I actually bothered listening to Apple's last quarter results call. They are selling plenty of notebooks and powermacs, but less imacs (presumably because people were waiting for the imac G5).

Define "plenty", and compare it to sales of, say, IBM ThinkPads and Dell desktops.

Apple is in robust financial health. The stock was up over 200% this last year. Some analysts have claimed that it might even rise to $100 a share in the next year. That would be a 400% rise in less than two years. Since the majority of Apple's revenue still comes from computer systems, I find your comments ridiculous.

I find your comments ridiculous...you clearly don't understand how businesses and finances work. You must've been under a rock in the late 90s or something.

The stock price seldom has much to do with the actual company's financial situation and its potential, ESPECIALLY with technology companies.

What makes it even sillier is that people have been claiming the same for more than 15 years now.

And all the while, Apple's share has dropped from what, 20% to 2%? Instead of dismissing them as idiots, perhaps you can actually look at how far Apple has fallen. Their marketshare continues to decrease in their core business, even if iPod sales are great. People have been spelling doom for Apple for years, and I don't think they'll go bankrupt, but I'm sure they'll become increasingily irrelevant in the PC world.

Apple doesn't make the G5 chip, IBM does.

Thanks Ace, I didn't know that, what with working with G5 compilers...

It's exactly the same chip that Microsoft is going to use in the next generation XBox.

No, it's not. Not even close.

The G5 is the PowerPC 970, which is derived from the IBM Power4 server chip, and is single-core. The chip in the Xbox2 is a derivative of the newer IBM Power5 server chip, and is tri-core with things like multi-threading.

IBM has been tardy at delivering faster chips. That's hardly Apple's fault

No, it is Apple's fault. There was backlash from IBM when Jobs promised 3GHz in Summer 2004. IBM doesn't work on cranking up the clockspeed, they never have. Apple planned to put pressure on IBM by making lofty promises, hoping IBM would work harder on cranking up clock speed. IBM didn't, they work on future core revisions instead.

It is Apple's fault. Intel and AMD make a business out of continually cranking clock speeds and revving up every couple months, IBM will adjust clock speeds very slightly, maybe once every 2 years even. They just add new features to cores to make them faster. They've always been like that, and Motorola is usually the same way. It's Apple's fault for sticking with either embedded chip makers or server chip makers -- both of which don't build a business on frequency scaling like Intel and AMD.

and I don't see it continuing for much longer.

Well, you're a moron. The public roadmaps don't put the G5's clockspeeds as going up much at all. What they are doing is making a dual-core version, though...

[Traianvs]

It's too bad Apple is such a heap of ****e. We're mostly stuck with this crashhog Windows because of lack of decent competition. Linux and other OS are nice, but not so user friendly if you need to to more complicated stuff.
God I hate computers... Can't these programmers make something better ffs, they're getting paid zillions of dollars for their work!

[Agathon]

They are not good sources for information about market trends, or even company value. Stock analysts exist to measure the hype and predict if a stock will rise or fall, and as the dot-com burst and other companies have shown, this rarely has much to do with what the company's actually up to.

As I said, you seem to think it is a conspiracy. These people are employed to help stockholders make decisions, often by cutting through the hype.

Of course in your mad world they exist solely measure the "hype".

Are you sure you aren't suffering from some form of paranoia?

I'm not saying it's a conspiracy or that they're morons, just that they're people who exist to say when to buy and sell. And when a company is being hyped up, you can bet its stock will rise, and give it a "buy" recommendation.

Have you been living on Mars?

This is exactly what tech stock analysts have been trying not to do over the last few years. After the dot.com crash you couldn't go a day without some soul-searching article on this subject.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Agathon
It is. I actually bothered listening to Apple's last quarter results call. They are selling plenty of notebooks and powermacs, but less imacs (presumably because people were waiting for the imac G5).

They make a measling 2% of the market. They do not sell plenty of notebooks and powermacs.

Apple is in robust financial health. The stock was up over 200% this last year. Some analysts have claimed that it might even rise to $100 a share in the next year. That would be a 400% rise in less than two years. Since the majority of Apple's revenue still comes from computer systems, I find your comments ridiculous.

Stocks are not always accurate indicators of how the company is doing. I don't know where you get off on saying that the stocks show how the company is doing financially. Enron's stock shot up but it didn't show the reality. I find your comments ridiciulous. Apple from what I look like barely makes enough to cover its operating costs.

It's fair to make claims about various problems that Apple might have, but in the light of the actual facts, it is just silly to claim that they are doomed.

I never said they were. They would continue to move as a company but they would fall behind just like Cyrix did a few years ago.

Apple doesn't make the G5 chip, IBM does. It's exactly the same chip that Microsoft is going to use in the next generation XBox.

I never said Apple made the G5 Chip, but they make the G5.

A computer that has run reliably that whole time without ever once needing to be taken in for repairs. A computer that I have never had to erase and reinstall the OS on (I did have to reinstall it a couple of years ago when I bought a bigger hard drive). A computer that has never suffered from a virus or malware attack.

It is Apple's fault for putting trust in a company that obviously has different standards then they do. AMD has been zipping through the water and has a much different business method then Apple. Apple runs reliably? Good for you. I still have a Pentium 166MHz CPU that still works even though I bought it like five years ago or something like that. But, Mac OS crashes all the time.. you may not have to reinstall it but it crashes constantly. Furthermore, AMD makes a very reliable CPU.

Why would I want to spend good money on a Windows based system that to make competitive I would have to build myself. My time is worth more than the difference. Not having a computer that is loaded up with crapware by the manufacturer is also something I value.

You don't have to build it yourself. There are plenty of good computer companies out there. And I'm not talking about Dell. You can go down to third party builders and go on the net. You can customize the machine to your own specifications with parts you need. Each part of a PC is customizable. When you find what you need on, you order it and they build it for you. I don't like Dell. But the PC market is not only dell.

More to the point, having a computer that my wife cannot break, wreck or render inoperable is certainly worth hundreds of dollars to me. If you knew what she was like with computers, you would esteem Apple highly for being able to create such a machine.

Apple is a load of crap. And my mom can't break my dad's AMD Athlon 64 based machine, and she is probably the same.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
As I said, you seem to think it is a conspiracy. These people are employed to help stockholders make decisions, often by cutting through the hype.

Of course in your mad world they exist solely measure the "hype".

Are you sure you aren't suffering from some form of paranoia?

They exist to tell people when to buy stock, period. Modern stock analysis is as much predicting human behavior that understanding the company's financials.

When you think the stock is going up, you buy it. When you think it'll go down, you sell it.

Why does stock go up? Because lots of people buy it. What does hype do to people looking to make money? They hear this digital music thing is the next big thing, and Apple is the "number one", and jump on that bandwagon, inflating the price and deflecting the P/E...

I don't believe it's a conspiracy. I don't know why you keep saying that. It's analysing and predicting human behavior, that's how you make money in the stock market. If you think people are going to panic, you sell...if they're going to drool, you buy. It's how money is made.

Real, smart, professional people who buy longterm stocks watch the P/E closely, and those people are very concerned about Apple's rapidly rising P/E. It means the stock is overvalued, and it will normalize.

Edit: To give you some idea of how Apple compares to others:
Apple's P/E: 90.83
Microsoft: 35.96
IBM: 20.96
INTC: 20.32
Citigroup: 15.28
Oracle: 24.54

Now which of these values do you think is overly high?

You do know what P/E means, right? The price-to-earnings ratio? If you're saying their stock is going to go up another 200% or so within a couple years, that'll make that number even more ridiculously high. When it crashes -- and it will -- it will crash very, very hard...if what you're saying is true. Even so, I don't think it'll happen. Apple's stock now is just shy of what the dot-coms were at in the late 90s...which then crashed down heavily to the ~50s.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Mr. Nice Guy
We all know that Mac users have a higher vocabulary than PC users, so .

What on earth is a higher vocabulary?

Ironic, this.

I like to introduce molly bloom to you, btw.