I have ceased expecting objective, well researched journalism from online sources especially those that reside in Canada but this story just takes the cake.

Not only is this story devoid of any real evidence to support the writers argument, he fails to bring up anything that hasn't been said since 1985.  The fact of the matter is that Apple Computer has always been viewed as “On the Verge of Folding”.  From 1987 on the name Apple Computer could not be uttered in the media without being accompanied by the adjective “Beleaguered”, it wasn't until the summer of 1998 with the introduction of the G3 PowerBook, PowerMac and iMac that things started to turn around in the area of media perception.

Heralding the triumphant return of the Jobsobian Horde to power at Apple the media switched their view of Apple from Pariah to Darling.  Now this canuck believes the Fruit Company^TM is heading for oblivion again, sighting lagging unit sales and the fact that 3^rd party software vendors don't even have Mac users on the map.

All this is very interesting indeed when you look at the amount of new software that is released for MacOS X everyday; there are currently over 5,000 apps available for MacOS v.10.2, and the list is growing exponentially as Linux and UNIX heads recompile apps for Jaguar.  The PowerBook G4 is heralded as the perfect laptop and the XServe is one of the most well received, affordable and powerful 1U server offerings ever.

One of his biggest indicators of Apple's imminent demise was:

In its latest numbers released in January for its fiscal first quarter of 2003, revenue fell from a year earlier and all of the company's major computer lines saw diminished numbers. PowerMac sales were down 20%, while iBook sales fell 8%

While this is all fine and dandy Mr. Thompson neglects to point out that the loss was due to:

The quarter's results included several non-recurring items: the write-down of certain equity investments totaling $49 million net of tax; a restructuring charge of $4 million net of tax; an in-process R&D charge of $1 million net of tax; and the reversal of a portion of a previous executive compensation expense resulting in a favorable impact of $2 million. Excluding these non-recurring items, the Company's net profit for the quarter would have been $7 million, or $.02 per share.

And while the numbers of Macs shipped has fallen, 734 thousand Macintosh