DATE: Saturday, July 26, 1997               TAG: 9707260476

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY AKWELI PARKER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   63 lines

NEW APPLE SYSTEM HITS STORES TODAY AMID LAGGING SALES AND OTHER TROUBLES, THE COMPANY HOPES OS 8 BEARS FRUIT.

Bored through with holes in its upper ranks, embattled Apple Computer Inc. this week unleashed a component of its strategy to turn the company around.

Apple calls its new product the biggest Macintosh operating system upgrade since 1984.

Today Mac users can ``officially'' get their hands on the new OS 8 operating system in stores. It looks better, say those who've gotten sneak peeks, but, more importantly, it outperforms previous operating systems.

The operating system is the framework of instructions that facilitates communication between visually oriented humans and binary-speaking computers.

``It's looking to be the most exciting system release in years,'' said Chris Dembitz, sales manager at the Memory Bank Computer Center in Virginia Beach.

Mac OS 8 retails for $99, and Apple offers a $30 rebate to owners of version 7.6. Some stores, like CompUSA in Norfolk, couldn't wait for the official release date and were selling the new system earlier this week.

Buoyed by favorable trade publication reviews, OS 8 has been a hit with users before it even hit the shelves.

``The first shipment, we sold out of those two weeks ago,'' said Dembitz.

And although still given to crashes when asked to juggle too many tasks at once, ``it's a lot more stable than in previous systems,'' Dembitz said.

A small number of conflicts with some utility programs have surfaced, but vendors say they're already working on patching them up.

Mac OS 8 features what Apple calls a ``multi-threaded, PowerPC-native Finder.'' It will make the machine run faster and allows heavy-duty multi-tasking, which lets users do other stuff while they copy files, print or engage in otherwise memory-hogging operations, the company says.

Rollout of OS 8 may at first seem like an exercise in planned obsolescence - Apple plans to release an all-new platform, code-named Rhapsody, next year.

Not to worry, says Apple. OS 8's debut is consistent with the company's ``dual operating system strategy'' of maintaining Mac OS upgrades even as it establishes Rhapsody, which is aimed at high-performance users like artists and graphic designers.

``Apple's keeping the two paths open - that's good for corporations who have a large investment in Macs,'' Dembitz said.

Apple can hardly afford to alienate its shrinking pool of customers. Makers of so-called Mac clones took a 4.5 percent chomp out of Apple's customer base last year, and the company slipped from the Top 5 list of personal computer makers, according to Dataquest.

The company was faltering even before Gilbert Amelio took the reins as CEO last year, promising to restore Apple to health. But the company took a turn for the worse during his tenure, which saw the stock lose half of its value. Apple took a $56 million bath in the red for the third quarter, and the stock closed Friday afternoon at $16.25, up .4375.

Amelio bailed out earlier this month before Apple brass could kick him out of the plane. Cushioning his descent: a golden parachute worth an estimated $7 million, according to MacWeek.

Apple watchers all over are eager to see what company co-founder and ``prodigal son'' Steve Jobs can do to revive the shriveled company. Following Amelio's resignation, the company announced that Jobs, who had hung out at Apple since February as an adviser, would take an ``expanded role'' at the company.

Meanwhile, the company no longer attempts to predict when it will return to profitability.

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