Steve Jobs addressed the MacWorld Expo in person this morning after, he
said, taking a "red-eye" flight to
New York overnight. Jobs led off his presentation with an "Apple Hierarchy
of Skepticism," inspired by
psychologist Abraham Maslow's "hierarchy of human needs." In Jobs'
version, the most basic level was
Apple's survival, followed next by a stable business (based on
profitability), then the new, four-product
strategy designed for growth: desktop professional, professional portable,
consumer portable, and
consumer desktop that is the iMac.
Jobs announced that the iMac rollout will be Saturday August 15: "We'll
have a lot of iMacs on the shelves
in the stores - maybe not for long, but...." He also said that customer
feedback had resulted in a change
from the original 33K modem to a 56K unit.
After a demonstration of Allegro (Mac OS 8.5) and its advanced "Sherlock"
searching technology,
Microsoft's Ben Waldman addressed the audience. He talked about how Office
98 is well suited to iMac
users and announced that iMac buyers will be eligible for a $100 rebate
from Microsoft if they also
purchase Office 98. (Education customers will, instead, be able to choose
between a free copy of Encarta or
Bookshelf.) Waldman next demonstrated a Internet Explorer 4.01, to be
bundled on the iMac and offer
Mac-first, Mac-only features.
Jobs talked about software and emphasized game support: "For some reason,
some past management teams
didn't like games. But we do." He then introduced Disney Online president
Richard Wolpert, a former
Apple employee, who announced the beta testing of Disney Blast for the
Mac, as expected. (This follows a
very controversial earlier practice of actively blocking Mac Web clients
from Disney Blast). The service will
cost $5.95/mo. or $39.95/yr.
During the presentation, Jobs also noted the following:
1.750,000 G3 systems, including tens of thousands of PowerBook G3's, have
been sold. ("Supply
should catch up with demand in the next few weeks," said Jobs, apologizing
for availability
problems.)
2.He demonstrated second-generation DVD video (with parental controls)
playing on a PowerBook
with an MPEG decompression PC Card. [Note that battery life may be quite
short when playing
DVD videos.]
3.50 to 100 iMacs will be on display at the expo
4.Comparing a Celeron to an iMac, Jobs cited benchmarks of 3.2 ByteMarks
vs. 7.9 ByteMarks
respectively.
5.USB products will include, HP, Epson, Canon (in Japan) printers;
Syquest, Imation and Iomega
storage devices; Microsoft joystick; PalmPilot cradle; Connectix live
video camera; Kodak digital
cameras
-
Nobody really cared if Apple tanked it,
but now if Apple tanks it, it also tanks NeXT,
and we're going to do everything in our power
to make sure that doesn't happen. ... anonymous NeXT employee
<> tbyars@earthlink.net <>
--============_-1312209982==_ma============
Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii"
<color><param>0000,00D7,0000</param>http://www.macintouch.com
Steve Jobs addressed the MacWorld Expo in person this morning after,
he said, taking a "red-eye" flight to
New York overnight. Jobs led off his presentation with an "Apple
Hierarchy of Skepticism," inspired by
psychologist Abraham Maslow's "hierarchy of human needs." In Jobs'
version, the most basic level was
Apple's survival, followed next by a stable business (based on
profitability), then the new, four-product
strategy designed for growth: desktop professional, professional
portable, consumer portable, and
consumer desktop that is the iMac.
Jobs announced that the iMac rollout will be Saturday August 15:
"We'll have a lot of iMacs on the shelves
in the stores - maybe not for long, but...." He also said that
customer feedback had resulted in a change
from the original 33K modem to a 56K unit.
After a demonstration of Allegro (Mac OS 8.5) and its advanced
"Sherlock" searching technology,
Microsoft's Ben Waldman addressed the audience. He talked about how
Office 98 is well suited to iMac
users and announced that iMac buyers will be eligible for a $100
rebate from Microsoft if they also
purchase Office 98. (Education customers will, instead, be able to
choose between a free copy of Encarta or
Bookshelf.) Waldman next demonstrated a Internet Explorer 4.01, to be
bundled on the iMac and offer
Mac-first, Mac-only features.
Jobs talked about software and emphasized game support: "For some
reason, some past management teams
didn't like games. But we do." He then introduced Disney Online
president Richard Wolpert, a former
Apple employee, who announced the beta testing of Disney Blast for the
Mac, as expected. (This follows a
very controversial earlier practice of actively blocking Mac Web
clients from Disney Blast). The service will
cost $5.95/mo. or $39.95/yr.
During the presentation, Jobs also noted the following:
1.750,000 G3 systems, including tens of thousands of PowerBook G3's,
have been sold. ("Supply
should catch up with demand in the next few weeks," said Jobs,
apologizing for availability
problems.)
2.He demonstrated second-generation DVD video (with parental controls)
playing on a PowerBook
with an MPEG decompression PC Card. [Note that battery life may be
quite short when playing
DVD videos.]
3.50 to 100 iMacs will be on display at the expo
4.Comparing a Celeron to an iMac, Jobs cited benchmarks of 3.2
ByteMarks vs. 7.9 ByteMarks
respectively.
5.USB products will include, HP, Epson, Canon (in Japan) printers;
Syquest, Imation and Iomega
storage devices; Microsoft joystick; PalmPilot cradle; Connectix live
video camera; Kodak digital
cameras </color>
-
Nobody really cared if Apple tanked it,
but now if Apple tanks it, it also tanks NeXT,
and we're going to do everything in our power
to make sure that doesn't happen. ... anonymous NeXT employee
<<> tbyars@earthlink.net <<>
--============_-1312209982==_ma============--