Seybold: Apple attempts to reestablish itself as key business player

Apple used the Seybold Seminars conference, which is aimed at the company's core desktop publishing users, to try and reestablish itself as a key player in the business world.

Steve Jobs, the firm's interim chief executive, said during his keynote speech in San Francisco on Tuesday, that systems built on a new PowerPC chip - the 400, 450 and 500Mhz G4 - would rival those running Intel's rival Pentium III processor.

He described the G4 as a "supercomputer on a chip," and said desktop systems running the 400Mhz version would be available immediately. Machines based on 450Mhz PowerPC chips would ship in two weeks, while a 500Mhz model was scheduled for October.

But while analysts immediately ripped into his claims that the G4 ran nearly three times as fast the Pentium III "using Intel's own benchmark tests", John Warnock, Adobe's chief executive, attested: "Currently, the G4 is significantly faster than any platform we've seen running Photoshop 5.5."

He continued: "Of all the machines that we have seen, this is the fastest machine that runs our applications. One of the nicest things about having Apple back is that this industry is no longer boring."

But David Wu, an analyst with financial institution, ABN Amro, said: "There are lies, damn lies, and demos." Jobs initially lost credibility in making such claims following his interpretation of benchmarks for Apple's iMac consumer machines. But despite this, news of the new machines sent Apple's stock soaring more than $3 on Tuesday to a 52 week high of $65.25.

While publishing users will undoubtedly endorse the G4 based machines, Jobs also tried to broaden their appeal by saying the new technology would speed up tasks such as encoding digital media and running Internet applications.

He added: "We've preserved the design features of the Power Mac G3 in our new professional colours," which are silver, clear and "graphite gray".

But he also pandered to the publishing crowd by announcing a 22 inch Apple Cinema Display, which he claimed was the largest LCD based flat panel display ever brought to market. It will ship in limited quantities from the start of October.