Behind the announcement that the company is to pay its first dividend (CI No 667) lies the picture of an Apple Computer in a state of glowing health: Apple says that the principal reason its profit growth was a modest 6% in the most recent quarter is simply that research and development expenditure on a string of new products still in the pipeline for later this year was up 43% on the figure for a year ago; a fall in gross margins to 50% of sales against 56.6% a year ago was in the plan, but the company notes that the figures for the January to March period were much better than it had expected, with initial order rates for the Macintosh SE the strongest for any new Macintosh product, while the Macintosh Plus has been selling strongly into business, university and fireside markets, and the 16-bit IIgs has revitalised the Apple II family.
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