Features

SAN JOSE — Steve Jobs rescued Apple Computer Inc. once before. Now he has to try to do it again. 

With the pioneering company he co-founded losing money and struggling to hold on to its niche in the computer world, Jobs will make one of his signature sales pitches Tuesday at the Macworld expo in San Francisco. 

Jobs is expected to unveil new Power Macs and PowerBook laptops and more fully display the new Macintosh OS X operating system, in hopes of generating a buzz among loyal Apple users and software developers. 

“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 cold fact that demand for Macs remains weak and inventories are way too high despite holiday-season price cuts, according to a report Monday from the Salomon Smith Barney investment bank. 

Apple’s earnings report for the quarter that ended Dec. 31 is due next week, and the company has said 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. 

Jobs has tried to assure analysts that 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 on Monday. 

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

Even Jobs has acknowledged for months that Apple has an image problem – the belief among some consumers that the sleek, top-line Mac Cube computers are slower than competing models that run on Microsoft’s Windows system. The latest Mac Cubes are expected to narrow that “megahertz gap.” 

Analysts also have complained that Apple is relying too heavily on the Macs’ impressive design to wow customers – who instead want functions that Apple has been slow to provide, such as CD-recording drives and compatibility with peripheral devices such as personal digital assistants. 

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. 

All this happened after Jobs – whose first run at Apple helped revolutionize personal computing – returned in 1997 to save the company from the brink of ruin by sharpening its focus. 

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. 

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On the Net: 

http://www.macworldexpo.com 

http://www.apple.com