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The World Awaits New Mac Models

New York — With less than 24 hours until Macworld 2000 New York opens industry insiders only have educated guesses and speculation as to what Apple will reveal at the show, but the general consensus is the company will revamp its G4 PowerPC and iMac desktop lines.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, makes these prominent introductions himself during his keynote address on the first day of the show and Apple’s security is so tight few outsiders are privy to what will be unveiled. During the past two years he has used this venue to take the wraps off the original teal-colored iMac, the multi-colored iMac line and the consumer-oriented iBook notebook computer.

Tony Violanti, vice president of sales for ComputerTown, Salem, N.H., expects new G4 desktops and suped up iMacs, possibly sporting processors with twice the speed of the 350Mhz models now on sale. He also thought Apple would slash the price on its existing models to clear out the backlog of G4s that now exists in the distribution channel.

Processor speed has been an issue. As Intel and AMD have produced processors with clock speeds in the 1GHz range, Apple has equipped its models with chips rated much lower. Apple claims that clock speed is not a true measurement of a chips processing power and that its G3 350Mhz are much faster that similarly rated Intel/AMD processors, but many consumers still gravitate toward the larger number.

Michael France, a senior partner with MacCenter, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., anticipates something new from Apple in all four of its primary categories (professional and consumer desktops and notebooks) and the possible addition of a fifth category. He would not speculate what the fifth might be.

All the Apple retailers said Macworld should give their business a much needed boost, as sales have slowed down in the past couple of months. The iMac and iBook lines have been hit particularly hard as Apple has run out of inventory and Mac enthusiasts are willing to wait a couple of months to see what is introduced at the show.

In other news, Apple will report its third quarter earnings today.

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