“Apple’s new products and impressive sales results should capture the interest of investors… There is no doubt that Apple’s new positioning will allow the company to experience some growth. They are essentially branching out into new market share in areas that were previously untapped. This is especially evident with iTunes, which may provide a glimpse into the future of the music industry,” Dustin Zahrt writes for Market Critic.
Zahrt writes, “Marketing strength and sales aren’t the only things Apple has going for it. It will be hard for investors to ignore Apple’s growing stack of cash. Since quarter 4 of 2002, Apple has enjoyed a cash-on-hand increase from 2.2 billion to 3.5 billion as indicated by its most recent quarter 3 report. Gross profits have also been up 4 consecutive quarters since 2002. Another improvement to note is the decrease of inventory and increase of receivables as compared to the last 4 quarters. All of these factors are positive catalysts for Apple’s stock.”
Zahrt writes, “Investors aren’t getting the discount they were receiving 6 months ago when Apple traded under $15 per share, yet the stock looks poised to perform well going forward. To achieve and maintain profitability Apple must continue to expand its market share by finding main-stream opportunities. Currently, Apple has only a small portion of the overall computer market. But armed with new, more powerful computers, and iTunes, Apple looks set to break out of its current niche.”
Full article here.
No Fair!
How come Apple gets all the attention for being “innovative” and “driving the industry”? Apple’s R&D is miniscule compared to Microsoft and Wintel, and Apple’s cash on hand is also miniscule compared to Microsoft’s wealth which exceeds many countries GNP.
I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future!
“I don’t know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future!”
Not Microsoft, he he
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Re: Mr Troll
I read that Micro$oftopoly spends somewhere north of $5 Billion per year on R & D. The question I have is this: What do they have to show for it? Microsoft Bob & the Office Paperclip? Let’s take a look at the facts:
GUI- (PARC Developed, but not as we know it) brought to market by Apple.
Mouse- ditto
USB- Intel developed, but brought to market by Apple.
FireWire- Apple invented.
HyperCard- Ditto
PDA- Ditto
WiFi- Brought to market by Apple
BlueTooth-Brought to market by Apple
Online (Legal & Workable) Music Service- Brought to market by Apple
Internet Media Player- Not Win MP, Not Real Player…QuickTime
First Internet Ready Consumer Computers- Apple
Plug & Play- Apple
Rendevous- Apple
Easy Networking- AppleTalk
Online Internet Services Suite- eWorld, iTools, .Mac
What M$ is good at is making a pale imitation of what someone else has developed, and forcing people to it with their OS. Ask Corel, Netscape, etc.
NoPC: Toll Troll is joking. You know…sarcasm?
A couple points:
HyperCard is practically nonexistent except in legacy applications.
Bluetooth was around long before Apple hopped on board.
I’ll give you the rest, as they are debatable.
What is with everyone not being able to spot the oh so obvious sarcasm and wit that is popping up in the feedback? I think we all need to take our red hats off and relax a bit and have a joke.
NoPC Zone:
Good work, although some facts are erroneous.
First off, Xerox PARC did not invent the mouse nor the GUI. Although this is often (mis)quoted, the true inventor of the mouse and GUI (and hypertext and email) is the amazing Douglas Englebart of Stanford Research Institute. However, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center did some groundbreaking work, there can be no doubt about that.
Secondly, as much as I love Apple and recognize their brilliance and innovation, they were not the first to bring an online legal music service to market either. I’m not sure who exactly was first, but I believe emusic.com was one of the first. They certainly preceded Apple by a few years.
With that said, Apple certainly is one of the most consistently innovative companies out there, but let’s not overstate their importance.
Sarcasm is a weak attempt at conceding you have lost an argument.
Addendum, let’s hope this article is right and Apple is indeed poised to grab market share. I fully expect them to double their market share over the next few years.
Mr. Tangent, it’s true that Apple wasn’t the first one to bring a legal online musice service to market. However, they created the easiest to use non-subscription based music store with the most palatable DRM restrictions of all the services. It’s true their catalog needs some beefing up, but that should come in the near future.
Apple is breaking into new markets with its Unix – sorry SCO Group – Darwin based OS X, Xserves and G5 PowerMacs. The new markets for these products are science and now with Renderman, render-farms for animation. Apple has been losing to Dell in its traditional stomping ground, education and has to make up for it with new (for Apple anyway) markets.
As for the iTunes Music Store, if Apple is going to become a content provider perhaps it should split into two companies.