Apple Inc (AAPL)

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08:55 AAPL Apple Computer: Adobe CS3 will be a driver for Mac sales in '07 - Piper (79.71 )

Piper Jaffray says based on their conversations with Adobe creative professionals, they believe the upcoming release of CS3, which will be the first version of Adobe's Creative Suite that is optimized for Intel-based Macs, will be a catalyst for new Mac sales.

They say the bottom line is that there is significant pent-up demand for Intel-based Macs among the Adobe creative pro community.

They note Adobe creative pro customers cannot run their Adobe apps at full efficiency on an Intel-based Mac until CS3 is released, so many are waiting until that time to upgrade their machines. They expect 138k more Macs per quarter than they had been anticipating, and say this would add 7% ($0.04) to their EPS estimate in both the Jun-07 and Sep-07 quarters.