Was expecting a lime, instead got a lemon

As a boy I used to love American comics, particularly Marvel ones.

The Superheros used to get into impossible scrapes and the Marvel writers (usually Stan Lee) always used the same phrase - no matter how difficult the situation - to get stricken heros out of trouble. It was: 'With one mighty leap he was free.'

Standing on a hot podium in the US, hosting a live satellite-linked media circus, part-time Apple CEO Steve Jobs must have been wishing for his own personal Stan Lee to pen those words so he could escape the barrage of suspicion and disappointment that must have been emanating from the audience.

Given the marketing disasters Apple has hosted in the past, it is quite an achievement for Jobs to lord over the very worst case of hype in the company's history. And he has done it at the very time that the market was begging for stability and some signs of outward investment. In the last few days, Apple investors have been queueing up to rant about the man who has declared himself the Messiah, but he has failed to perform the pre-announced miracle.

Apple deserves a break. It deserves a break from the grand-standing of its principals, a break from poor management, and some breathing space to develop its products out of the glare of possible insolvency and Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. But instead, it got a pre-arranged PR flag-waving fiasco which, instead of being the long-awaited restructure with possible help from Oracle, was merely a jazzy product announcement.

Some have been saying that the rumoured Oracle merger or investment was delayed at the eleventh hour because of the huge MCI deal going down the same day on Wall Street. That sounds plausible - it seems over the top for even Jobs to attach such importance to so much marketing puff. It therefore seems, despite the post-razzmatazz denials of Jobs, that the Oracle deal will happen, but just later rather than sooner.

Apple's resellers in the UK this week are worried about the plans to go head-to-head with Dell and attempts to hit a target of 15 per cent of revenue from internet sales. They should be worried. No one in a free market can say categorically that they will not give preferential treatment to direct sales over reseller channels. If the Oracle and Net Computer deal really is just a rumour, it's one Jobs will soon wish a more solid reality.