About six months ago, Silicon Prairie took a hard look at Apple Computer, Inc., and predicted the future for the Cupertino, Calif., computer maker was partly cloudy at best. But today, as Apple basks in the glow of its positive fourth-quarter earnings, releases a long-awaited new operating system and celebrates record sales of the iMac, we’re forced to upgrade the forecast to partly sunny.
Although the new Apple ad campaign featuring actor Jeff Goldblum talking about beige computers is as obnoxious as the “Think Different” campaign, the big difference is that, with the iMac, Apple has a formidable new computer to sell, a computer that’s worth letting the world see. Finally, perhaps for the first time in a decade, the powers at Apple have something truly different worth promoting.
Apple is a company on the rebound. According to an Apple spokeswoman, unit shipments were up 28 percent from last year, which may be enough to turn around the recent losses in market share. In addition, company sales increased nearly twice as fast as those of the computer industry as a whole.
Income rose to 68 cents a share for the fourth quarter, beating analyst predictions of 49 cents per share, and the net income of $106 million tops last year’s same-quarter $161 million loss.
And the best news for Apple is undoubtedly the report from Audit and Surveys Inc., which indicates that 42 percent of iMac buyers were people who didn’t identify themselves as Macintosh enthusiasts. The machine’s unique design and high-profile ad campaign may be attracting a new group of customers.
Mac fans will be pleased by the rollout of the Mac Operating System 8.5, with its ColorSync upgrade, speedier network performance, new “Sherlock” search function and a PowerPC-native version of AppleScript. It’s not the long-promised complete overhaul to the operating system, but it is a useful start.
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