The position of Apple Computer Inc seems to get daily more precarious. Yesterday, as his first public act, new chairman and chief executive Gilbert Amelio made an exception to the company’s traditional policy of not commenting on press speculation and decided to release a statement because of the destabilizing effect recent rumours and speculation have had on our business and our organization. The company says that it is not currently in merger talks with anyone, and that its loss for the current – fiscal second – quarter would be worse than the $69m loss last quarter. Neither piece of news was calculated to underpin the punch-drunk share price and the stock duly opened about a dollar easier at $27.375. Earlier, Reuter had reported that Sun Microsystems Inc had renewed its $23 a share offer but this time included a cash element. The higher operating loss will come atop of the $125m pre-tax charge this quarter for restructuring, and Apple stressed that the warnings were based on partial information and should be taken as a guide, not gospel – it doesn’t want to run afoul of securities laws on top of everything else. Apple plans to remain competitive at all levels while retaining our ability to develop and bring to market leading-edge technologies, particularly in the areas of multimedia, Internet, graphics and ease-of-use, Amelio said. Sun is clearly extremely keen to do a deal, and it was suggested that as a fallback, it was proposing an alliance of some other kind. Rumor suggests the second firm with which Apple has been talking is the unlikely Philips Electronics NV.
