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Will Apple Think Different?


Apple plans to make several announcements on Monday, 10-Nov-97, some expected; others mysterious. We expect Apple to announce new Macintoshes based on the PowerPC 750 chip (also known as G3 or Arthur). We’ve heard several rumors about the rest of the announcements:


  • Apple will unveil a WebObjects-based online store for sales of built-to-order Macs (seems like an obvious move for Apple; tonight the usually cluttered Apple home page sports simply a cookie, a shopping cart, and a screwdriver along with two lines of text);

  • Apple will announce a merger or partnership with the high-end database company Oracle (Apple board member Larry Ellison is CEO of Oracle);

  • Apple will announce a network computer based on the Mac OS or the WebTop specification being developed cooperatively among Oracle, IBM, Lotus, and Sun (the education market in particular has been asking for a network computer);

  • Apple has something in the works with Lucent, the telecommunications technology company spun off from AT&T;

  • And, to insert a ripple into the rumor stream, wouldn’t it be interesting if Apple leveraged the enthusiasm of its faithful users by setting up a system wherein anyone can sell Apple products off the Web and earn a percentage of sales, in much the same way that anyone can run a virtual bookstore that hooks into Amazon.com?

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