Apple's Jobs Sets Sites on Macworld

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) â€” Steve Jobs rescued Apple Computer Inc. once before. Now he must do it again. <br><br>With the pioneering company he co-founded losing money and struggling to maintain its market

Tuesday, January 9th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) â€” Steve Jobs rescued Apple Computer Inc. once before. Now he must do it again.

With the pioneering company he co-founded losing money and struggling to maintain its market share, Jobs is expected to make one of his signature sales pitches Tuesday at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco Tuesday.

Jobs, who returned to Apple in 1997 after leaving in the 1980s, helped engineer a turnaround in profitability by the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer maker.

The Apple chief executive is expected to unveil new Power Macs and PowerBook laptops, as well as its touted, but delayed OS X operating system.

What I'm hoping for is some pretty dramatic stuff. They need to get people excited again,'' said Roger Kay, a PC analyst at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass. ``They need to come back roaring.''

But while an upbeat Macworld might raise morale, it won't quickly change the fact that demand for Macs is weak and inventory high despite new price cuts, according to a report issued Monday by Salomon Smith Barney.

Apple's earnings report for the quarter that ended Dec. 31 is due next week, and it has warned it will lose between $225 million and $250 million. Analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial are projecting a staggering loss of 64 cents per share, the first time in three years the company has lost money.

Jobs assured analysts the company can return to profitability, and the consensus forecast is that Apple will earn 4 cents a share in the current quarter, which ends March 31.

But Salomon Smith Barney analyst Richard Gardner reduced his estimate for this quarter to a loss of 24 cents per share.

``While Apple's shares may receive a boost from Tuesday's product announcements, we would not be buyers,'' Gardner's report said.

Jobs has acknowledged for months that Apple has an image problem â€” the belief among consumers that the sleek Mac Cube computers are slower than competing models that run on Microsoft's Windows OS.

The latest Mac Cubes are expected to narrow that ``megahertz gap'' with faster processor speeds.

Adding to Apple's woes, the company lost its traditional leadership in the education market last year, falling behind Dell Computer Corp. in sales to schools.

Apple shares gained 19 cents Monday to $16.56 on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, far below the 52-week high of $75.19 reached last March.

In 1999, the year for which the most recent figures are available, Apple held 3.4 percent of the nearly $200 billion worldwide PC market and 4.4 percent of the nearly $80 billion U.S. market, according to IDC.

â€”â€”â€”â€”

On the Net:

Macworld: http://www.macworldexpo.com

Apple: http://www.apple.com