[MacGenius]

Thinksecret.com posted the happenings from the Apple sahreholder meeting today.

One excerpt caught my attention:

- A concern about hardware speeds was expressed. Jobs first made point that clock speed does not necessarily tell the whole story, and that even Intel is emphasizing diminishing importance of clock speed as it release new portable processors that are faster at slower clock speeds. He then acknowledged that it is a problem, and that Apple is very aware of the issue. He said "there will be a time" when Apple would speak about its relationship with Motorola, and that the particular shareholder who asked the question would be invited, if he desired.


I think Steve is hinting here that Morotola's days are numbered for supplying the CPUs. With IBM ramping up the 970 production I think Apple will be making a huge announcement once the new PowerMacs are ready. Moto has dropped the ball so bad that Apple has given up and handed everything to IBM. I wouldn't be surprised if either Intel or AMD would make some chips for them as well (manufacturing only, no design or instruction set switching).

Any thoughts? Personally I'm more than glad to hear them go to somebody else who can crank out more performance.

 

[MACSPECTRUM]

When I was getting trained as a Apple System Engineer at Apple Canada, they started out the series of classes by quoting an interesting statistic to show the relative size of Apple to IBM.

"IBM has, at any given time, more people on planes than Apple has employees."

IBM has shown to be very good at manufacturing and it would also be good for Apple is they distributed their supplier base by using AMD and/or Intel.

Never hurts to have more than one supplier.

 

[Dr.G.]

They should expense options to help the shareholder know the true value of a share of Apple stock.

 

[hayesk]

They have to start expensing options now, much to the shagrin of the executives. Although I'm not sure how it will work. Really, the company doesn't incur the expense until the options are cashed in.

 

[Kosh]

I think MacGenius and Macspectrum are on the right track... Apple is likely to make a big announcement about IBM in the coming months (3-6 months). There also may be something happening between Apple and AMD... there's certainly enough rumor. Most likely Apple will use AMD's fabs to produce PowerPC chips or keep this option open, if for some reason IBM can't produce the volume... it's doubtful IBM can't produce enough supply for IBM and Apple to use, but of course IBM's primary concern is their own servers. AMD certainly is just as good as IBM at fabbing chips. And as Macspectrum and Jobs himself said, Apple likes to have options.

 

[Dr.G.]

hayesk, but that expense has to show up on the books as a liability each year. What seems to happen, however, is if the stock price falls below the option price, and thus, will not be exercised. What usually happens is that new options are issued at an even lower price. Sadly, then there is little incentive to work at boosting the stock price beyond a fiscal quarter or two, rather than rebuilding a company and making it profitable once again.