APPLE Computer's plans to reduce costs and regain market share will not affect the Cork operation, Mr Padraig Allen, the plant's managing director, said last night.

Mr Allen said he was "pretty confident" the current employment level of 1,200 would be maintained. "There will be no major restructuring of the manufacturing operation here," he said.

He was speaking after Apple Inc chief executive, Mr Gilbert Amelio, his strategy for the future at a conference in California yesterday.

Mr Amelio said the company would cut costs by reducing the number of computer models it sold. He did not specifically mention the Cork operation.

Addressing a conference of 4,000 independent software developers, Mr Amelio said Apple would halve the number of models over the next 12 months and focus on one operating system instead of six. He also said sales of its computers rose 40 per cent in April from the previous month.

Mr Amelio said Apple hoped to reduce its costs so that the company could be profitable at $9 billion (£5.7 billion) in revenues - or $2 billion below last year's sales.

The company, regarded by many as having practically invented the personal computer nearly 20 years ago, has encountered difficult times recently, prompting it to sack its chief executive, take a huge inventory writedown and announce plans to cut thousands of jobs.

Mr Amelio, who took over from Mr Michael Spindler earlier this year, hash pledged to return the computer manufacturer to profitability within the next 12 months.

The company suffered a record $740 million loss in the second quarter of the 1996 financial year.

Mr Padraig Allen told The Irish Times it was a question of simplifying Apple's product lines. "We have made our lives too complex and confused customers."

He said reducing the product lines, or rather the number of configurations of its' seven or eight products, would not mean reducing volume. The company produced 82 configurations, he said, and focusing on fewer configurations would be a welcome move.

"We are not abandoning any market segments," he said, "but there will be a lot more focus on the Internet."

Mr Allen said, in the past, an Internet link was optional, but all Apple products will now have to have Internet "activity"

He said no specific campaign would be launched to win more market share, nor did he believe that the company would substantially lower its product prices.

"With new technology, people expect products to cost less. We will compete aggressively and will continue to match everyone on price," he said.

Mr Allen said Mr Amelio's outline of the future yesterday had more to do with positioning the company and how it could support the customer.

"We have got a lot of core technologies right, it is just a matter of executing them better in the future" he said.

He said the Irish plant, which employs 150 people in research and development, would also have a bigger technical input from its engineers.

Mr Allen said Apple would focus on proving its competitiveness providing more customer solutions and would also concentrate more on shipping its products direct to customers.

He said the company would also concentrate on improving its inventory control systems.

"Inventory is a big cost," he said, "and we will be concentrating more on building to real demand."

He admitted that the workforce's confidence had been shaken, but he believed that Mr Amelio's outline for the future would help restore that confidence.