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  3. It’s been an extraordinarily bad week for Apple, the well-known American manufacturer of computers and software. In their quarte

It’s been an extraordinarily bad week for Apple, the well-known American manufacturer of computers and software. In their quarte

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问题    It’s been an extraordinarily bad week for Apple, the well-known American manufacturer of computers and software. In their quarterly report, the company announced a $ 45 million lose for the three months ending this September. At the same time, the economics magazine Business Week stated that Apple had one of the eight worst hoards of directors in the US. All the while, the firm’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, was drawing the highest salary in corporate America.
   News like that brings out the experts with their predictions of a collapse--and their "evidence" is abundant. Apple has allowed market share compared to most of its competitors. In 1996, when Gil Amelio was brought in as chief executive, Apple’s market share hovered at 7%: Today, its market share is below 3.5%. With Mike Spindler and Gil Amelio running the business the company was plagued by quality problems. Its high specifications laptop, PowerBook 5300, was known as the "flaming book" for its inclination to burst into flames.
   The company is notoriously had at forecasting. In 1999, it underestimated demand for its PowerPC-based desktops forcing buyers towards its competitors Dell and IBM. Then it overestimated demand in 2000 and 2001, which cast the company $ 1 billion.
   Surely Apple is about to slide into the footnotes of technology history?
   First, from a financial perspective, it won’t with $ 4. 3 billion in cash and a loyal customer base. It would take almost unimaginable mismanagement.
   It is true that Apple has lost any operating system battle with its unstoppable rival Microsoft. However the internet has meant that outside of games, the operating system is less and less an issue as now the same information can be viewed and similar software can be transferred across a wide vairiety of platforms.
   Second, it isn’t just how many customers you have that counts. It is also how well connected they are. My informal survey of the group tells me that Apple attracts journalists, consultants and those for whom having the latest technology is not just desirable but an obsession. In fact, for those who care about which is the best operating system, it’s not Microsoft Window. It’s Apple’s late operating system, OS X. This is already the favorite choice for graphics applications: the one that powers most large websites and the internet in general.
   More important, there is also a growing trend among software developers who have opted for Appel’s portables rushing Mac OSX. Californian journalist Jon Udell reckons that Apple may be about to break into the highly profitable markets of small companies and homes.
   Many large enterprises have started to investigate a variety of systems as a desktop replacement to Windows. Some, like the Scottish police, have taken the plunge and opted for one of those alternatives. And that was before the arrival of the most consumer-friendly operating system of them all. Apple’s OSX now being on trial by the Dutch civil service. Should the software break into the enormous American market, large profits are sure to follow. That isn’t to say that Apple hardware is going to surge into corporations and leave Microsoft a long way behind. Far from it, the Microsoft share of market will hold fast. But it means that Apple’s value proposition is increasingly attractive to customers, whether large or small.
   Apple still excels at developing new markets, just as it did with publishing and video editing. With OSX, groundbreaking developments are commonplace. Currently, the best web-based news service is Net News Wire Lite, available only to Apple users. Delivering news more quickly and fully than anyone else is the key race being run in an emerging market that will continue to grow according to worldwide surveys of online habits. Things are more different for Apple now than in 1997, when surfing the web on an Apple normally ended in a system crash.
   Apple is also at the forefront of digital media: this year, its digital music player the iPod will have had a 15% share of the market. This and similar products are merely the first step.  Big rewards are expected to follow us to Apple’s highly user-friendly software for working with writable CDs and DVDs.
What effect does the writer predict that Apple hardware will have on the sales of Microsoft?
选项 A、It will have little effect on Microsoft corporate sales.
B、It will give Microsoft a greater market share.
C、It will mean that Microsoft customers have cheaper hardwares.
D、It will produce a surge in Microsoft sales.
答案A
解析 文中倒数第3段谈论了Apple hardware的影响，继而leave Microsoft a long way behind。实际上，微软仍然会有稳固的市场，表明Apple hardware不会对微软的销售造成很大影响，故A项正确。
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