Apple Inc (AAPL)

[louismg]

Apple at Siggraph: On the Scene

FYI -

This week, I am at the Siggraph 2003 show here in San Diego (http://www.siggraph.org/s2003/ ). The San Diego Convention Center is overflowing with 10s of 1000s of creative types who do post-production, digital effects, and anything to do with movies, broadcasting and the like.

Apple has a medium-sized booth with approx. 25 workstations (all G4 w/flat panels) in front of a large screen where a presenter walks the group through Shake or Final Cut Pro training. Not only are all the seats filled, but around the borders of the booth were standing-room only gawkers three to four deep, even though Apple was not hawking desktops, iPods or even software at the show.

Two booths over was a similar setup from an art center, again outfitted with 20 or so G4's and flat panels, attached to old-fashioned wooden easels. The software company had a unique app that let people draw with the mouse and keyboard in an attempt to match that on stage. Off to the side was an XServe, attached to a 2.52 TB XRAID array, with the two G4 processors lighting up as they reached full capacity.

It's not that Apple has a huge presence at the show themselves, but that this entire market is dominantly Mac OS X. I would say it's a 60/40 split of Mac OS X vs. everyone else, and I haven't seen any Mac OS 9 (thank God)...

In one discussion I had with a team of software developers who make plug-ins for After Effects and Premiere, I asked them if they made Final Cut extensions, and they said no, that they did not have any Macintosh development experience at their firm. Delving further, they said that the 2D design market was more than 50 percent Macintosh, and they were scurrying to find Macintosh talent, even as Final Cut and Shake grow in popularity. I speculated that maybe Renderman (Pixar's app) would go the same route, and one of them said that on Monday, all of Pixar had gone Mac OS X, and the industry was buzzing about it.

Clearly, that's an unsubstantiated rumor at this point, but interesting nonetheless, if true.

Additionally, sections of the show floor, and the area hotels, are featuring wireless Internet connectivity for attendees. I have seen about a 3-2 Macintosh advantage of the Dells/IBMs of this world, and overwhelmingly the PowerBooks are the 12-inch and 15-inch variety. Not many iBooks or 17-inchers so far. It's intriguing to see how popular the 12-inch PowerBook is for this community given its recent introduction...

Oh well... show starts again in a little over an hour, so enjoy,

- louismg