Interesting, how the timing of MWSF and the quarterly results is really just a form of hedging of the bets. If one goes wrong, the other is hopefully something to tout, and keep the stock up there.
Also, 25% increased in mac sales.... does anybody know how this stacks up to the industry as a whole right now? (IE- is the this market share or riding the wave, primarily?) Likewise, to interpret, was that 25% a dollars number or units sold? And anybody remember if a year ago was a particularly good or bad quarter, in terms of the product cycle, other not so long term trends?
All in all, looks good, but the question will be what will wall street thing, particularly given that apple went down with mac world, rather than up.
Good god, the mac mini is a risk. Every other mac, success is selling enough to make it profitable. But the mini isn't about that, it's saying, here we are, with as much hype, cash, momentum, and an edge over windows as we're ever going to be, now is the time to gamble, and try and take on windows. Cheap stuff and iworks-there is no greater symbol of taking on windows than that, for apple. If they fail, they fail big, stock plummets, they sink huge dough into it too, to try and get what can be got from the situation. If it works, well, it works, and 65 bucks is justified, so why not 100?
The good news is, the timing is perfect. Windows has to be near rock bottom, as far as viruses etc. go-they're going to recover soon, or at least be able to convince people that longhorn will fix it all. But longhorn is so far away, and windows is so trashed. Mac OS is at the top of it's game, and there isn't much more it can do-it's got the great features under it's belt, and one promised to come, so nobody will think, hmm, there's not much left to do but bloat it all to hell. If panther's searching wasn't on the horizon, it wouldn't look like apple had future growth, but if it was any earlier with the OS, then there wouldn't be exposé, ilife in such great glory, all the rest. Also, apple is at it's maximum of hype, both with the imac, and apple as a brand, and more so with the ipod. But that is great, because both the hype is good, and apple has been bid up as the ipod company, not the mac company. So failure to move the mac part isn't gonna kill them, but success could be huge. And, of course, 10 million ipods out there, and still nothing comparable, is as good of a "hey, might try a mac" kinda crowd as they're going to get, until of course the ipod isn't actually that much better than the competition.
But, I've already read reviews calling the mac mini overpriced- compared to gateways with monitor and mice included, same price.
Naturally, though, nothing is that enticing about the gateway, to a windows user, while a computer they can consider totally secure and stable, and with awesome software, might have quite a draw.