Apple Goes Back to Basics at Upbeat Annual Meeting
Apple Computer, never in want of an upbeat, modern theme for its public events, could just have well borrowed a classic for its annual shareholders meeting Wednesday: What a difference a year makes.
At last year’s meeting Apple was still showing the scabs of its internal struggles and weakened 1985 financial performance. But this year Chairman John Sculley had the more pleasant tasks of reviewing the company’s robust 1986 profits, noting that all its major product lines were updated last year and predicting a renewal of revenue growth and increased earnings amid the introduction of a stream of products this year.
Major Announcement
On the eve of its first major product announcement for 1987, Sculley told shareholders that by the end of the year, “no one will doubt . . . that we are a mainstream company.”
Apple is scheduled to unveil in San Francisco today a series of communications products that analysts say could go a long way toward justifying that claim.
Aimed at increasing Apple’s competitiveness in the office market, they include a program to link Apple Macintosh computers so that users can share information. Apple intends to introduce software later this year that would allow other makers’ personal computers, including IBM’s, to participate in such work groups.
Apple is ready, however, with products that will enable Macs to translate some documents generated on IBM-style machines. These include an add-on card that will allow IBM and other personal computers to use Apple’s LaserWriter printer, a crucial component of its desktop publishing system.
Such a product, according to Paul D. Evans, analyst at Warburg Rowe & Pitman Akroyd in San Francisco, would eliminate a major barrier to acceptance of Apple desktop publishing systems at corporations where IBM and compatible machines proliferate.
Analysts also expect Apple to announce in March a Macintosh that would be more compatible with IBM-style machines.
Sculley reaffirmed that there “will be a tough earnings comparison” with last year’s second quarter, when Apple had a profit of $31.8 million on sales of $408.9 million, but he said the second half of 1987 should be better.
