Jobs, Apple are down, but not out

The man most synonymous with visionary thinking and product hype came to San Francisco this week and was humbled by a stock market that has pounded Apple Computers' shares into the ground and a PC market that suddenly appears to have lost its appetite for Apple's creative computer designs.

An unusually reserved Jobs this week spelled out his latest vision, hoping that million of buyers in the PC market of 2001 will buy his idea of an evolving `digital lifestyle' in which the PC will play an increasingly central role.

But the speech lacked the hype and optimism radiating from Jobs during past MacWorlds. Ironically Jobs' vision was a nearly carbon copy of the one delivered just days earlier at the CES show in Las Vegas by Craig Barrett, Intel chief. In nearly identical terms, Jobs described how he sees the role of the PC.

"What is our vision?" Jobs asked himself in his keynote address at the annual MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. "We don't think the PC is dying at all. We think it's evolving. Just as it has, since it was invented in 1975-1976. People are asking `What's going to happen to the PC?' We think the PC is entering the age of the digital lifestyle. We believe the PC--more importantly, the Mac--will become the digital hub to add value to other digital devices."

Barrett told his CES audience that the PC sits at the core of a big digital universe. "The PC is rapidly becoming the central nervous system for the home entertainment. The PC is the digital brain, capturing information in one place and delivering it in another. And the value of the PC to the user grows exponentially as we have more tools connected to the PC."

If Apple wants to see its new vision realized in the market, it will have to start selling products, and soon. Apple's sales were down more than 30 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous three months. To do so, Jobs unveiled a number of key new products, some of which won't be available until later this year.

One is the stylish new PowerBook notebook built around an ultra-stylish one-inch thick Titanium casing. The system will start at $ 2,600 for a 400 MHz version and up to $ 3,500 for a 500 MHz G4 PowerPC one. The notebook weighs 5.3 pounds, has a 15.2 inch screen and an internal DVD-ROM drive.

On the desktop side, Apple is increasing the top speed of its G4 PowerMac from 500 to 733 MHz, the biggest percentage performance increase in PC industry history. 733 MHz is still far behind the 1.2 to 1.4 GHz speeds of Intel Pentium processors. But because Apple's systems process data in 64 bit chunks as opposed to the 32 bit Pentiums, they require far less processing speed to process the same amount of data. A 450 MHz G4 PowerMac, for example, can outperform a 1.2 GHz PIII in graphics-heavy applications. At 733 MHz, the PowerMacs will be able to compete with 2 to 3 GHz Pentiums, which are still a year or more away from market entry. The new PowerMacs will range in price from $ 1,699 to $ 3,499.

The 733 MHz PowerMac will also sport a new DVD/CD-ROM SuperDrive, which lets users burn their own music and movie discs. New iDVD software allows users to make their own DVD movies.

Jobs showed off a new, free application called `iTunes' that will make it easier for Apple users to download and write music CDs, organize a personal music library and transfer music to digital MP3 players. "There is a music revolution happening now. We're late to this party and we're about to do a leapfrog. IMovie, iTunes and iDVD are going to be the passport to this digital lifestyle era and that is where we are going."

Jobs also said that the launch of Apple's Mac OS X is scheduled for March 24 and the software will be available for $ 129. The Unix-based OS will be installed in Apple computers in July. Some of the new features of Mac OS X include Silicon Graphics' OpenGL 3D graphics technology, as well as QuickTime for video, editing and streaming technology. Additionally, a redesigned finder gives users different options to view their file systems. "Mac OS X is laying the foundation for the next decade, decade and a half of our software efforts here," said Jobs.

But while the usually upbeat mood at MacWorld will raise morale of the Apple faithful, demand for Mac systems is not expected to pick up significantly any time soon. Apple's sales plunged in the fourth quarter, a trend Jobs painfully acknowledged. "The last several months of 2000 were particularly challenging for Apple and our industry. We've decided to start 2001 with a bang."

That bang will likely be in the form of a big loss. Apple is expected to announce a loss of $ 225 million to $ 250 million for the past quarter.