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Apple Businesses

Apple Posts 4th Quarter Financial Results 128

Posted by michael from the not-broke-yet dept.
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."
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Apple Posts 4th Quarter Financial Results More

Apple Posts 4th Quarter Financial Results

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  • anyone want to claim (Score:5, Funny)

    by wakejagr ( 781977 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @09:27AM (#10523101) Journal
    that apple is dying now?

    • Re:anyone want to claim (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I wont believe it till Netcraft confirms it anyway...
    • They're dead. That's rigor mortis setting in.
    • The sad truth is that, even though Apple is arguably in the best position they have been in in over a decade - certainly since the Scully and Spindler era - there will always be naysayers claiming that Apple's impending doom is just around the corner...

  • The biggest thing that scares me ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14, 2004 @09:39AM (#10523282)
    ... about Apple's continued success is that there is no apparent successor to Steve Jobs. Back in the beige days before Jobs returned ... I seriously thought Apple was going to disappear.

    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)

      by LookSharp ( 3864 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @09:58AM (#10523518)
      And even if there were someone with the passion and marketing-savvy to keep the RDF intact, Steve Jobs is the kind of person who would either 1)recognize this as an immediate threat to his "control" of the company, or 2)not recognize the potential usefulness of said person and instead not get along with them because they are similarly egotistical and/or bullheaded.

      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. :)
      • Seriously offtopic, but this problem was recognized and written about by Isaac Asimov in one his early "Foundation" stories. The Foundation (good) never got destroyed by the Empire (bad), because

        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)

      by amichalo ( 132545 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @10:08AM (#10523625)
      Those who have built great companies have done so knowing that their time will come - either in death or retirement. Smart management requires the organization to not depend on a single point of failure.

      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.

      • >Jobs didn't code OS X.

        But wasn't alot of it based on NextSteP or whatever it was? (a creation of Jobs' company)
      • 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.

        Just like Roddenberry and Star Trek?
    • It's interesting to see this in the light of the one about most companies having four stages. In the beginning they're led by idealists, technologists, doers -- people who are concerned about the core business, who get excited by it. Then, when a company reaches a certain size, that's not enough to keep control of things, and management takes over: managers don't tend to have the same vision, so the company often loses innovation, but it consolidates, doing what it was already doing better than ever. Tha
    • Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's President and COO?
      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
    • You make an excellent point.

      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)

      by brass1 ( 30288 ) <SlrwKQpLrq1FM.what@net> on Thursday October 14, 2004 @12:16PM (#10525306) Homepage
      ... about Apple's continued success is that there is no apparent successor to Steve Jobs. Back in the beige days before Jobs

      Yes [apple.com] they [apple.com] do [apple.com]. (just to name a few)

  • Market share (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14, 2004 @09:48AM (#10523384)

    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)

      by ip_vjl ( 410654 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @10:02AM (#10523562) Homepage
      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.

      But then what does Apple do with the computer?

      They've just taken a hit to their profit by offering a discount. They could:
      1. Sell the (traded-in) computer themselves
        but that would mean in a way "endorsing" non-apple computers
      2. Donate the computer
        But where? Education ... that's where Apple tries to sell big. Poor countries ... maybe, but then you're making it look like Apple is trying to dump their 'trash' onto poor countries. Not a great PR move.
      3. Throw it away
        now they'd have to pay even more to dispose of them
      4. 'Silently' sell them to to some other entity which would then re-sell 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 ... as much as I'd like to trade something in myself.

      • You forgot #5... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by RegalBegal ( 742288 )
        There are literally hundreds of places in the US looking for older computers and spare parts. They could easily donate to them and BAM...write-off.
        • Perhaps you missed #2 on his list...
          • Who said education?

            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)

        by CommanderData ( 782739 ) * <kevinhi@yaho[ ]om ['o.c' in gap]> on Thursday October 14, 2004 @10:45AM (#10524081)
        Apple should cripple the trade-in PCs with spyware and bad drivers, then set up a group of eBay accounts and sell them all. Then, after the new owner is sick of his or her crappy PC, Apple uses the e-mail and shipping address info from all the eBay sales to direct market a better PC (The Mac) for these poor souls.

        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... :)
    • I think that Apples extra cash should go into getting video game companies to develop for the Mac. I'm a proud owner of a Ti-Book and love it.

      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)

      by sunbane ( 146740 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @10:18AM (#10523761) Homepage
      My order for my iMac G5 is in, ships next month. I think your fears about getting help are unfounded. As an experiment we got my wife an iBook... we'd never used a mac before (I admit I do know Unix quite well)... We were able to do most anything with no assistance (or even reading a manual) at all. Even setting up Xcode for Java for my wife's programming class at college. You try something, it just works. Don't have to worry about viruses, don't have to worry about active x controls installing spyware or taking over the browser - that is why people usually need "help" with their computer. So, now we are switching our main box to an apple... still have to keep a pc on hand for games, but for the most part, your fears are unfounded thanks to a very easy to use and elegant interface. It really does just work.
      • I too am planning on switching, but in the opposite direction. I am writing this from a G4 PowerBook, which is my first Mac, and will probably be my last.

        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

      • Due to financial contraints, I've waited a long time before getting a new computer. I took careful consideration of needs. The only thing that an intel/amd box would get me that a mac would not are the windows games. Everything else I need to do I can do on OS X and in fact some stuff is better because of Darwin. For family use, linux is out of the question. I wanted as close to appliance computing as I can get. So I chanced on the new iMac G5. I got it last week. Overall I'm impressed with it. People who v

        • Re:I Switched (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Just wanted to mention that you shouldn't operate the iMac G5 with the back open, as it uses the case's design to cool the components via convection. If you leave it open, the air doesn't flow properly, and can lead to overheating.
          • I agree, it does not make sense to do that, not to mention that you don't have a proper stand for use.
            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)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Market share (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, what I would find a useful incentive is for Apple to come up with a plan for easing migration costs for users with investments in existing software.

      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)

      by micaelus ( 450857 )
      That advice is so obvious that it makes you wonder what the hell Apple's thinking (including myself). My guess is that by doing so, the company's entire strategy would change, and either they're not ready for such a huge shift, or it doesn't fit in to their long-term goals. Moving from a niche market to vying for larger marketshare is a major step.

      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)

      by metalligoth ( 672285 ) <metalligoth.gmail@com> on Thursday October 14, 2004 @12:52PM (#10525915)

      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)

      by dbrutus ( 71639 )
      Actually, Apple's been very good at finding small niche markets that have fat/happy dominant competitors, buying up a good upstart and undercutting the price of the dominant so Apple ends up owning the market. There are lots of verticals that Apple could invest in beyond movie editing. They're doing something similar in biotech and no doubt they are eyeing lots of other strategic buys to expand their offerings. Every time they buy into a vertical and severely undercut the incumbents on price, they incent pe

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday October 15, 2004 @05:13AM (#10533374)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • what i'd like to get is a cheep G5 without monitor. (most people allready have monitors)

  • Some interesting things from the conference call (Score:5, Insightful)

    by amichalo ( 132545 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @09:59AM (#10523528)
    Listening to the analyst conference call [apple.com], which is a pretty interesting thing to do, regardless of the company, Apple disclosed, and did not disclose, some interesting items:

    (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.

  • What's the term I'm looking for? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14, 2004 @10:48AM (#10524118)
    Debeleaguered? Unbeleaguerble?

  • Just to stave off the Trolls, I'll say.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bug-Y2K ( 126658 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @10:50AM (#10524139) Homepage
    They are doomed to fail and die a miserable bankrupt death because they...

    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 /. reason for Apple's imminent demise:

    1. One Button Mouse.

    (Did I miss any?)
    Thanks, I'll be here all week, try the veal.

  • I rather care about Apple giving the best computer-experience available right now. But if they have a healthy business strategy, great for competition and the consumers. Great news then !

  • About the mouse (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 14, 2004 @11:46AM (#10524863)
    Seriously guys, I have a windows 2 button usb mouse, and it works fine with my mac. So shut up about the mouse. It's just like complaining that you hate windows because it doesen't come with mozilla. -_-

    • Re:About the mouse (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The mouse gripe is pretty weak ... except for the laptops. The whole point of having a mobile computer is in not having to plug a lot of external crap into it.

      There's no reason powerbooks couldn't have a two button pad ... just have both buttons do the same thing (by default) so as to act like a 1-button mouse. For those that are so inclined, they could alter the behaviour for the second button and make it a two button mouse.

      I'm sure Apple could even work up some sort of pressure sensitive design so that

      • Re:About the mouse (Score:4, Informative)

        by metalligoth ( 672285 ) <metalligoth.gmail@com> on Thursday October 14, 2004 @01:00PM (#10526017)

        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)

        by Gogo Dodo ( 129808 )
        If you want a two button mouse with no wires on a laptop, go buy a Bluetooth mouse. PowerBooks come with Bluetooth.

        • Re:About the mouse (Score:3, Insightful)

          by n8_f ( 85799 )
          If you want a two button mouse with no wires on a laptop, go buy a Bluetooth mouse. PowerBooks come with Bluetooth.

          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)

        by martinX ( 672498 )
        I always plug a mouse into any laptop I'm using. I hate trackpads and I hate those nipply things that some other laptops come with (Toshibas?). Bring back the trackball I say!

    • Re:About the mouse (Score:2, Informative)

      by Depili ( 749436 )
      well, you can always use sidetrack to bind taps in the corners of the pad to a second, third or even fourth mouse button...
      But then again I find mice to be the most useless computer accessory...
    • I too use a regular 2 button optical mouse. The optical mouse that came with the mac is doing nothing. Its soo pretty and a sad sad waste.

      apple should make 2 button mice..
      • If you really want it, you can have it: Macmice.com makes a two-button mouse that looks like Apple's, but with a 'split' near the front and a scrollwheel.... Haven't tried them but they do look nice. Bluetooth versions too.
    • I'm actually keeping an eye out for a source of one button mice for a lab full of WinBoxes that I administer. Anybody know where to find plain old one button PS/2 or USB mice dirt cheap?

      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)

    by Enrique1218 ( 603187 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @12:37PM (#10525657) Journal
    Apple has been producing better quality that is not really expensive. The G5 has impove the power of thier desktop systems over the G4. The PowerMac and Xserve are price comprabale to Xeon/Opteron workstations and servers offering sometimes with better performance. The Imac is more expandable than before with faster componments(g5,hypertransport bus,SATA). Moreover, it is priced less than or equal to similarly equipped Dell (4700), Gateway (Profile 5), and HP (Pavillion) systems. The operating system is a better consumer OS than Windows XP or Linux. Then there is the iPod which has taken the music player market. I expect Apple to ride this wave for quite sometime.
  • for selling loads of Apple stocks that I had when it was around $20/share...

  • What Apple's strategy is (Score:5, Insightful)

    by theolein ( 316044 ) on Thursday October 14, 2004 @10:17PM (#10531473) Journal
    One guy further down asked what Apple would do since its marketshare is so small, even though its total userbase is constantly growing.

    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.

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