Macworld Expo keynote: Apple posts a profit

In his keynote address, Steve Jobs made the surprise announcement that Apple posted a $45 million profit for the last quarter. Details can be found in a MacWEEK article. Reaction from the crowd was (not surprisingly) very positive. Don Crabb offers a somewhat subdued assessment of the keynote. MacInTouch has a report from Henry Norr. News.com offers a detailed analysis. Finally, here is an excerpt from an email sent to Apple Developers 20 minutes after the keynote was delivered:

"Here are the most relevant points--the "just the facts" news--presented in chronological order:

* Apple's sales of Power Macintosh G3 computers are strong. In the first 51 days of sales (this covers up to just a few days ago), Apple did much better than it expected. We forecast sales of 80,000 Power Macintosh G3 computers--we sold 133,000.

* Apple's work with retail vendors is paying off. CompUSA has 57 Apple "store-within-a-store" units up and running (over 140 expected by February). In October (before the "store-within-a-store" concept was implemented), sales of Macintosh computers at CompUSA accounted for 3 percent of all computer sales (in numbers of units sold). At the 57 Apple "store-within-a-store" locations, Macintosh sales in December rose to 14 percent of all computer units sold.

* Mac OS 8.1 will be out in February as a commercial product, the standard OS on all new Macintosh computers, and a *free upgrade* to all Mac OS 8.0 customers. It includes the new HFS Plus disk format, better Java support (complying with the Java Development Kit 1.13 standard), and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 for Macintosh (which just went final) as its default browser. It is also the first operating system to include built-in support for the Universal Data Format (UDF, the format used by DVD discs).

* Representatives from four companies presented four hot new products: Microsoft Office 8.0 for Macintosh (you've got to see this to believe it--it's *great*), 40 enterprise solutions from Oracle, Macromedia Dreamweaver, and Cyan's Riven: The Sequel to Myst (which is created exclusively on Macintosh and Silicon Graphics computers).

* Last and best, Steve Jobs announced approximate figures for Apple's first financial quarter of 1998, September through December 1997. (Apple will announce the exact figures on January 14.) According to Steve Jobs, "Apple had revenues of $ 1.575 billion, and Apple Computer last quarter made a $ 45 Million profit....I think I can tell you for sure that Apple is coming back.""