Apple Posts 4th Quarter Financial Results 128
theanonymousbrit writes "From the AppleInsider article: 'Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2004 fourth quarter ended September 25, 2004. For the quarter, the Company posted a net profit of $106 million, or $.26 per diluted share.' This profit (on a revenue of $2.35 billion) apparently constitutes Apple's highest fourth quarter in nine years. In terms of actual units shipped, over 830,000 Macs and 2 million iPods were sold over the quarter. The strength of the new iMac G5 is also credited. Pretty impressive figures."
anyone want to claim (Score:5, Funny)
Re:anyone want to claim (Score:1, Funny)
Re:dying? (Score:2)
There will always be naysayers... (Score:1)
Re:do the math (Score:2)
Apparently companies like Adobe, Blizzard and Microsoft think it is worth developing software for OS X, but then again those guys are just niche market developers
Re:do the math (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:do the math (Score:3, Funny)
Seriously! There's no Spybot or Ad-Aware on Mac OS X! WTF am I supposed to do when I run IE and get 0wnz0red by spyware?!?
Re:do the math (Score:4, Interesting)
The developer problem is a lot better now that first class tools ship with every Mac. I expect the problem to get better, not worse over time.
Re:do the math (Score:1)
Re:do the math (Score:2)
Shareware and Freeware, tools and games, just visit the apple Software Download site.
Most of the time the software works out of the box and is beautyfull designed.
angel'o'sphere
Re: (Score:2)
Re:do the math (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it that there's constant hand wringing over apple's market share, and there's NOT constant hand wringing over BMW's (who holds less a share of the automobile market than Apple does of the personal computer market) market share? I didn't buy I mac because I wanted a Ford Torus. I bought a mac because I wanted luxury.
With that said, Apple's 90% share of the HDD based music player, and 70% share of the (DRMed) online music market is pretty impressive. I don't think either holds, but it will certainly be quite hard to unseat Apple from the top of either pile (with no real challenger in sight).
Re:do the math (Score:2)
I think your comparison is quite apt: Macintosh is a luxury product, and presumably, it can remain that for some time to come. The question is whether they are anything other than that. At this kind of market share, it doesn't look like it's going to take over the world.
Re:do the math (Score:2)
The car market analogy oh so popular these days is very flawed. BMW could make just one car a year and yet it would still run on all the nation's roads and such. if apple made one computer a year.. who the hell is going ot make apps for it? Without apps there is no computer
Re:do the math (Score:2, Funny)
Yeah, but who's gonna fix it when it breaks?
Man, analogies are fun.
Re:do the math (Score:2)
ps
Analogies rule.
Re:do the math (Score:2)
Re:do the math (Score:3, Insightful)
Software developers look at more than hardware marketshare.
cars are not computers (Score:2)
The more computers you sell the more software gets written, the more useful the computer, the more computers you sell.
There is a certain amount of critical mass needed to get developers to create the software needed for the platform to compete.
MacOsX has enough market share to make developing worth it. and apple creates some great apps to fill in the missing pieces. Although each computer sold brings the cost of the os per computer down.
Re:do the math (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether or not it's a Luxury machine, it's what you wanted. A BMW might have a low market share, but also the top selling sedan in the USA might also have a low market share when compar
you're comparing Apples and lemons (Score:1)
Re:do the math (Score:2)
But for those times when you do want a torus, may I recommend these [krispykreme.com]?
Re:do the math (Score:5, Insightful)
Technology: after the PC crash in fall 2000, Apple's competitors hunkered down and shed workers by the thousands. Apple invested in R&D, and came out with OSX, G5, and new iMac designs. I see no reason for that successful strategy to not continue in better times.
Development: The Macintosh has tons of good software. There are the big names already mentioned. There are all the shareware and freeware programs (just take a gander at VersionTracker). Thanks to Apple being savvy about Unix and Open Source, there is also a ton of software being ported over from Linux.
If you are all that amped by market share, Apple does have 82% of the mp3 player market.
"No one's going to die, mister. Mothra's going to come and save us."
Taiki Goto, "Mothra", December 14, 1996
(Released in Japan six days before Apple's surprise announcement of the return of Steve Jobs.)
Re: (Score:2)
This is interesting but there's another side (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's look at it from the perspective of a few potential software developers, one small, i.e. shareware, one big, i.e. enterprise ERP and one in a specialised field, i.e graphics.
The case of the small developer: You only need to spend a small amount of time with the generally extremely low quality level and huge mass of sharware software avail
Re:This is interesting but there's another side (Score:4, Insightful)
But "the growth in general" was the point of my calculation: with only 1.7% of newly shipped PCs, where actually is the growth in Macintosh?
There are indeed corporations using OSX, often because the TCO is very low
Everybody likes to throw around TCO claims. If they are demonstrably low for OS X, why isn't everybody buying it? See, I think TCO claims are just hard to prove, for anybody.
That situation has now stopped and people are moving back to the Mac because of its superior colour management and stability and flexibility and simplicity.
You state those as if they are self-evident facts. I'm sorry, but to someone who uses OS X part time, they are not self-evident. Stability seems to have stopped being a distinguishing factor between systems anyway: all major OSes seem to be able to stay up, even under load. I keep challenging people to show me quantifiable data demonstrating that OS X has better usability, but nobody has. I don't even know how to measure "simplicity" and "flexibility", but informally, I just don't see much of a difference. (The Macintosh's built-in color management support is of no use to us.)
I used to be a Windows sysadmin, so I know what I'm talking about.
And I used to be a UNIX sysadmin, Windows sysadmin, and Linux sysadmin, and I've been exploring the use of OS X because of all those claims of lower TCO and simplicity. I don't see it. I think a mostly-Mac environment might be slightly simpler, but adding Macs to a mixed environment causes more work, not less, as far as I can tell.
and because it supports traditional Unix enterprise systems very well (The Java integration is the best available) [...] As long as Apple keeps on growing, developers will keep on making apps for the platform, even, with time, specialised ones.
So, Apple's technical vision of the future is to continue to make incremental improvements to Cocoa/Quartz/Aqua, keep offering Carbon, and keep offering Java? That is, as a language mix, people will keep writing software in Objective-C++, they will keep writing GUI apps built out of widgets in user interface builders, and occasionally write Java applications, often with non-WORA Cocoa API calls? Is that it, or are there any other major initiatives?
What would you say, perhaps, if in 5 to 10 years, Linux had captured 50% marketshare in the PC market? Would you also ask where the applications were now today? Or would you look at the growth in Linux in general.
I'm not even sure what that means: do you mean a single Linux-based distribution, anything based on a Linux kernel, Linux running PC apps in compatibility mode? I am also not sure whether the question even makes sense for Linux (since there are no "applications" in the OS X sense) or whether having 50% market share is even desirable.
In any case, based on your question, I conclude that you indeed believe that the PC market is a prize worth going for and that it is Apple's goal to get a large share of it and to get lots of applications for its platform. Is that the vision of the future that Apple has?
The biggest thing that scares me ... (Score:5, Interesting)
What Jobs has done to re-invigorate the company has been amazing, but what happens if something happens to Steve? Is there anyone else who can whip up the "reality distortion field" with the same frenzy to make Apple stay the trendy, innovative company that they are now.
I know the talent will be there, but without the leadership, will Apple again drift like back in the Gil A. days and fade into obscurity?
It just makes me nervous to think that the sole success of this company might hinge on the availability of Steve Jobs. (It's not like people live forever, you know)
Re:The biggest thing that scares me ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even pushing 50, Steve is still convinced he's going to be there for Apple, forever. There is no heir-apparent because Steve won't let there be one, not because one doesn't exist.
Re:The biggest thing that scares me ... (Score:2)
A weak general could never have endangered us, obviously. A strong general during the time of a weak Emporer would never have endangered us, either; for he would have [overthrown the emporer]. So it is only the combination of strong Emporer and strong general that can threaten the Foundation...but, what keeps
Great leaders build in successorship (Score:5, Insightful)
True, Jobs is the living incarnatiuon of Apple, but Jobs did not deisgn the iPod. Jobs didn't design the iMac G4. Jobs didn't code OS X. In all these things, Jobs was part of the vision, in many cases at Apple, he seems to be the prime visionary, but this 'rubs off' and inspires others and will continue to.
Apple has a strong culture. Cultures don't change overnight and any Jobs replacement would have to fit the culture the Board wants to perpetuate.
Re:Great leaders build in successorship (Score:1)
But wasn't alot of it based on NextSteP or whatever it was? (a creation of Jobs' company)
Re:Great leaders build in successorship (Score:1)
Just like Roddenberry and Star Trek?
Re:Great leaders build in successorship (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: The biggest thing that scares me... (Score:2)
Re:The biggest thing that scares me ... (Score:2)
He gets a lot of flak here on slashdot, but before Sun he started Lighthouse Design, and early 'Productivity Apps for NeXTStep' company that Sun bought for their object and desktop experience. Visio came out of Lighthouse's first product 'Diagram', they even had the order for Diagram from the company that wrote Visio.
I believe that Lighthouse was started by a group of friends fresh out of college. So, for Jonathan to go from college, to a successful business to C
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The biggest thing that scares me ... (Score:2, Interesting)
One response which came to my mind is the difference in the way Jobs will leave the company. The first time, he was ousted and had zero input towards his successor. The same people who thought he wasn't worth the trouble, also picked "safe, conservative" executives to run Apple. That didn't work out. You can't be conservative in an industry where your ideas may be obsolete by next year. Well, not unless you use your monopoly illegally.
This time around, when he decides to han
Re:The biggest thing that scares me ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes [apple.com] they [apple.com] do [apple.com]. (just to name a few)
Market share (Score:5, Interesting)
That's great, but what are they going to do with all their spare cash? They are already building a much better operating system than Microsoft's offerings with their existing budget. It doesn't matter how kick-ass their operating system is any more - it's ahead of the competition, and the only thing stopping them from taking a larger market share is the fact that they don't have the critical mass of market share there already.
What I would like to see Apple do is be more agressive in getting people to switch. Advertising is nice, but people who just use computers rather than having them as a hobby aren't going to pay much attention. They have a computer already, and they are comfortable with what they know.
How about a trade-in? People bring their old PCs to their local Apple store, and they get a big discount off a new Apple. Or perhaps a free training course (with certificate) when buying an Apple computer. The training course alone will ease newbies in and show them how easy it is, and the certificate will attract the people looking to improve their resume.
Apple don't have a problem building a better system than Microsoft's. They do have a problem with the network effect. When you ask your neighbour for help to fix your computer, chances are, he's only going to know Windows. When you walk into a newsagents, 99% of the magazines are focussed on Windows. When you copy a game from a friend, it'll be a Windows game. This is Apple's bottleneck; it doesn't matter how kick-ass their product is, they are only going to have marginal increases in market share as long as they think outperforming the competition is enough.
Re:Market share (Score:4, Insightful)
But then what does Apple do with the computer?
They've just taken a hit to their profit by offering a discount. They could:
but that would mean in a way "endorsing" non-apple computers
But where? Education
now they'd have to pay even more to dispose of them
Which would just mean a new supply of cheaper competitor machines enter the market(when the seller re-sells them) where they (Apple) have subsidized the cost difference between a new and used machine
I just don't see any way this would be a 'win' for Apple
You forgot #5... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:You forgot #5... (Score:2)
Re:You forgot #5... (Score:1)
I can name, in rhode island alone more place that will take computer stuff that have no educational connections. Crossroads Providence and Groundworks Providence are two big ones.
Non-Profits can use them and would be more than happy with a machine running ME so they can type up a weekly report.
Re:Market share (Score:5, Interesting)
These people come in to local Apple stores, trade in their crappy PCs for Macs. Apple sells the PCs on eBay AGAIN. Lather, Rinse, Repeat...
Re:Market share (Score:2)
I like it
Re:Market share (Score:1)
However, like many other mac users, I still have to have that Windows box sitting around to play my video games. I think if more video games came out for the mac at the same time as for Windows, more people would switch over.
Well, I'm Switching (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, I'm Switching (Score:2, Insightful)
The software is great. I have no complaints with OS X at all. The hardware, however, is unreliable. Nothing particularly serious, for the most part (white spots on the screen, headphone socket not noticing disconnection and leaving speakers muted, and one of the RAM slots failing). The real problem comes with the technical support. I sent in my mach
I Switched (Score:1)
Re:I Switched (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I Switched (Score:1)
You can feel the heat from the superdrive from removing cds and I found the hard drive was hot after I shut it down and opened it up to see the make of the memory module. I have to mention that this was after over a half hour of heavy disk usage.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Market share (Score:1, Interesting)
I own the Adobe Design Collection (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat) on the PC. If I become a switcher, I have to fork over about $600 to Adobe to buy the 'cross platform upgrades' to get Mac versions. Arguably, I'll also be going up in version number, as my current version of Photoshop is 6, Illustrator at 9, InDesign at 1, and Acrobat at 5.
Re:Market share (Score:1, Interesting)
Maybe they're not ready because such a strategy shift is expensive and risky. Yes, they've got a boatload of cash, but again, we don't know the company's long-te
Re:Market share (Score:4, Informative)
Or perhaps a free training course (with certificate) when buying an Apple computer. The training course alone will ease newbies in and show them how easy it is, and the certificate will attract the people looking to improve their resume.
Apple already does this, and you don't even need to buy a computer. Go to the Apple Store, and you can take any one of several courses on OS X, from the operating system and basics, to iPhoto or iMovie. All of the classes are small and thus can be tailored to you, and all you have to do is sign up. It doesn't cost money, and you don't have to buy anything.
Re:Market share (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Market share (Score:1)
Some interesting things from the conference call (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) They have reached supply/demand balance with the G5 processors with the potential exception of the top market 2.5 Ghz which may have slightly more demand over the next three months than IBM can supply for.
(2) They would not discuss the possibility of FLASH based iPods and/or lower cost units to penetrate the low end market
(3) Apple reitterated thier interest in the $800+ desktop market and not the sub $800 market
(4) About 30% of Apple store sales are to people who have previously owned Windows boxes and their sales to people who have never owned a PC are down from the pervious year, which Apple attributed to there being fewer and fewer people who have never owned a PC before.
(5) The new iMac G5 is off to an impressive start and they wish they could have had it for back to school buying season.
(6) Their current iPod promption is an exclusive pre-release with U2. Apple feels very good about their strategy that is holding 70% of the on-line legal download market with Wal-mart and Real at 6%, Napster with 10%.
(7) iPod is in lots of channels including BestBuy (ed note, I have also seen for sale at Foly's department store in Texas and the HP iPod is for sale at Radio Shack). This is iPod only but Apple continues to look for strong retail partners for CPUs as well.
(8) An analyst said 'hPod' and the Apple person corrected him to the tune of the HP branded iPod or something of that nature.
(9) Apple's board from time to time considers stock buy back programs but is not interested in one at this time. This is noteworthy because many top level Apple execs (Jobs being most notable) have very large stock option packages but low salary (Jobs' being $1). Since a share of stock is a percentage of ownership in the company, when the company issues more shares, this dilutes the value of a single share already outstanding. By buying back stock in the open market, a company would increase stock value, because exisitng stock would have the reverse effect, it would become a larger percentage of the company than it was previously. Since Apple is trading at over $40 per share now, not buying back the stock could signal that Apple Corp thinks it over valued at $40, does not want to drive the stock price higher, or simply is interested in investing the cash into R&D, merchandising, etc.
(10) Apple did have a truly wonderful quarter and it is a shame we will never know how it would have faired with a larger suply of iMac G4 or quicker availability of the iMac G5.
Re:Some interesting things from the conference cal (Score:2)
Top things kids are asking for for Christmas:
- Car
- Clothes
- Money
- iPod
not to mention... (Score:1)
What's the term I'm looking for? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What's the term I'm looking for? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What's the term I'm looking for? (Score:2)
(If anyone wants to get them started, the original lyrics are here [anysonglyrics.com].)
Re:What's the term I'm looking for? (Score:1, Funny)
Just to stave off the Trolls, I'll say.... (Score:5, Funny)
10. Can't survive without Microsoft's Cash Infusion
9. Have no hope of selling into "the Enterprise"
8. Sell hardware for too much
7. Are really a Software Company
6. Are really a Hardware Company
5. Can never equal the market share of Microsoft
4. can never equal the market share of Dell or (heh) Gateway
3. Their retail strategy will sink them (see reference in #4)
2. They don't give it away like Linux
and the Number one
1. One Button Mouse.
(Did I miss any?)
Thanks, I'll be here all week, try the veal.
Re:Just to stave off the Trolls, I'll say.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Just to stave off the Trolls, I'll say.... (Score:1)
Re:Just to stave off the Trolls, I'll say.... (Score:2, Funny)
the iPod doesn't support OGG.
Re: (Score:2)
I call BS (Score:4, Funny)
Not true! Scotty has had an iBook for some time now, and apparently Captain Kirk is saving up for a G5 tower. Mr. Spock, of course, is sticking with his ancient Pentium II running NetBSD....
Re:Just to stave off the Trolls, I'll say.... (Score:2)
-1. The should port to x86 now and then I'd buy a copy of OS X in a second. If they don't they're doomed to dwindling market share blah blah blah...
Does it matter for the consumer ? (Score:3, Insightful)
About the mouse (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:About the mouse (Score:3, Insightful)
There's no reason powerbooks couldn't have a two button pad
I'm sure Apple could even work up some sort of pressure sensitive design so that
Re:About the mouse (Score:4, Informative)
How to right-click on any modern Macintosh:
Hold down the control key on the keyboard.
Click.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Re:About the mouse (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:About the mouse (Score:3, Insightful)
That is one more thing I have to carry around. I'm getting a 12" PowerBook because I value the portability, being able to just grab it and go. I don't want to also have to grab my mouse. I agree that the PowerBooks should come with two button mouse pads. Just have configure both buttons to do the same thing out of the box! Then there is no usability price to pay.
The PowerMacs should co
Re:About the mouse (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:About the mouse (Score:2, Informative)
But then again I find mice to be the most useless computer accessory...
except apples mouse is nice (Score:2)
apple should make 2 button mice..
Re:except apples mouse is nice (Score:2, Informative)
Re:About the mouse (Score:2)
I wholeheartedly agree with everyone who bitches about one button mice; I find that for myself an eleven button trackball is just about ideal, but I'm so sick of having to tell novice users "No sir, your other left" over and over and over and over and over again.
And yes, as a matter of fact I *do* hate Windows because it d
not really surprising (Score:4, Informative)
Kicking myself (Score:1)
I'm kicking myself (Score:1, Offtopic)
What Apple's strategy is (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of us who use Macs and PCs know how good the Mac and Mac OSX is. For us, the people who know both sides (and who really doesn't these days?) there is no question.
But the guy raised my interest because I wondered what kind of strategy Apple keeps up its sleeve in case a crisis hits such as the one in the mid 90's. What products and goals would Apple have if large Mac software developers started deserting the platform for Windows or perhaps even Linux in the future? (For instance a lot of Games studios now produce Linux versions, which they didn't before and even Macromedia is considering developing for Linux). What would Apple do if MS stopped producing Office for Mac OSX and Adobe decided that it isn't worth the money develpoing for Mac?
I think Apple under Jobs considers this scenario very often in designing products.
In order to ease the dependance on pure Mac sales, not that Macs will die anytime in the next decade or so, if ever (Dvorak, you clown, where are you?), I think Apple started the semi-independant iPod and iTMS products that, although loosely coupled with Macs in marketing and software, appeal to a far broader base of customers than Macs do. This division is so successful that it even allows Apple to use it as a marketing device for the new iMac.
I think Apple spends more time than possibly any other company in both product R&D and market segment R&D. I don't know any other company that makes as much effort to cater for its various market segments, with the iMacs and iBooks for consumers and education, PowerMacs and PowerBooks for professionals and XServes and XRaid for enterprise, with especially ahuge amount of effort being put into the i- range to make them more appealing than your run of the mill PC or laptop. Added to this the huge amount of research that they must put into OSX R&D in order to keep it as simple, stable and powerful AND goodlooking as it is.
Then there's Apple's software line, ranging from the extremely well thought out and simple but powerful iLife apps, to the professional video and audio applications in whose markets Apple almost dominates. And even the very nice small business database Filemaker belongs to Apple, to round things off.
But back to the main subject. What does Apple do to stave off Microsoft and Adobe desasters? In the first case, Apple has a not very well kept secret that it keeps OSX compiled and up to date for x86. This mere fact is probably enough to keep Microsoft on its toes and keep the Office version for PPC rolling. The strange CherryOS post of yesterday showed just how much interest there would be for OSX on x86. If I put on my tin-foil hat I would be nice a conspiracy minded and say that the CherryOS debacle would be in Apple's inerests in order to simply show MS how muuch damage Apple could do to MS' marketshare.
Then, anyone who's been watching the development of OSX 10.4 Tiger knows about the CoreImage and CoreVideo technolgies. Those two technologies allow developers to slowly start gnawing away at Adobe's domination in that market, by making it easy for graphics developers to make applications that now only Photoshop and Illustrator can do. Apple is extremely clever in doing this because it will be a slow process, one that Adobe won't notice and suddenly kill InDesign and PS and AI, until the competition slowly makes itself known, when it will be too late for Adobe to blackmail Apple the way Gates did in the 80's with Excell and Word forcing MacBasic out.
In doing this Apple is taking a page from Microsoft who orginally got its strong position by using developer power. (Ballmer didn't dance on stage for fun, you know. He really meant that)
I think Apple has an even rosier future than imagined.
But then again, maybe the new iPod with image capability will be an absolute dud, so you never know.
Re:What Apple's strategy is (Score:2)
Apple has a not very well kept secret that it keeps OSX compiled and up to date for x86.
I didn't know that. Where has this been reported?
Re:Microsoft saved Apple (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, they do make a nice hefty sum off of Office for Mac...
Re:Microsoft saved Apple (Score:2)
Do you have any source for your claim? I couldn't find proof for MS selling that Apple stock.
TIA
Re:Microsoft saved Apple (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Microsoft saved Apple (Score:2)
You are aware that anybody could put that in there? I still see no proof. Still waiting for someone to post a link to some SEC filing or whatever.
Re:Microsoft saved Apple (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft saved Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you
Apple wasn't bankrupt in '97, nor anywhere near it. They simply lacked focus.
Re:Microsoft saved Apple (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft saved Apple (Score:2)
probably you forgot: Steve and Billy are old friends. And in the beginning of the MS time Steve helped Billy with a (far smaller) investment in a similar situation.
angel'o'sphere
Re:Microsoft saved Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft saved Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
However, the investment was a very big deal, and did help stabilize Apple's position. The reasons are far less simple than you are suggesting, though.
It showed that a big player thought Apple was worth investing it. It promised five years of Office updates. It stopped multiple lawsuits between the two companies. This helped reassure people that Apple wasn't going anywhere, but it was about much more than the money.
Also, as I understand it, Microsoft sold off that non-voting stock years ago, and is no longer making any money off of the deal.
Re:Microsoft saved Apple (Score:2)
I'm seriously interested in any source for your claim. I never found proof for MS selling that stock.
TIA
Re:Microsoft saved Apple (Score:1)