Brand: MacNews

ABN Amro, a banking group ranked sixth in Europe and seventeenth in the world, has started covering Apple stock with an “add” rating and a 12-month, US$25 price target by analyst Robert Cihra. The company was quoted as telling clients, “we think Apple’s valuation is attractive and the company has some latitude since it controls its own product cycles.” Incidentally, the banking firm cut Dell’s share estimates for the third and fourth quarters by one cent.

MacCentral’s game guru extraordinaire, Peter Cohen, takes an in-depth look at ATI’s new Radeon 8500 graphics card — TARGET=”_top”>announced late last night. “Inside ATI’s new Radeon 8500” provides lots of information on the pros and cons of the card, as well as a number of detailed specifications.

Elitegroup Computer Systems has agreed to pay US$234 million in shares and assumed debt to acquire Alpha-Top Corporation, the Taiwanese company presently making notebook computers for Apple. According to the report on Bloomberg, Elitegroup will issue 55.8 million new shares to purchase the remaining 80% of Alpha-Top. “Elitegroup is buying Alpha-Top to tap into the fast growing notebook computer market,” said Tony Mai, an analyst at Barits Securities in the story.

Martin Stone of MacWelt magazine in Germany takes an interesting look at why Apple has yet to release Mac OS 9.2 to the general populace of Mac users. The latest revision to the classic Mac OS is available with new system purchases, but that is the only way you can get your hands on it at present. Martin takes a look at what the reasons might be for this strategy. (German language article)

Apple Computer is listed on the exhibitor directory for The International Broadcasting Convention taking place from September 14-18 at the RAI Centre in Amsterdam, Holland. The IBC 2001 event covers key aspects of the electronic media business including audio, cable, film, grip, Internet, lighting, multimedia, production, post production, radio, satellite and transmission, and boasts 985 exhibiting companies as of August 9.