Apple Inc (AAPL)

[roni]

Intel Mac sales ahead of expectations

Appleinsider: 4:00 pm.

Reliable sources this week are corroborating reports of strong Intel Mac sales. According to these sources, sales of both the iMac Core Duo and MacBook Pro are coming in ahead of Apple's initial internal expectations. Apple executive vice president Tim Cook -- pretty much the man in charge these days -- is said be thrilled with the numbers and mounting orders for the soon-to-be-released 15-inch MacBook Pro.

iWeb and iLife driving .Mac sales

Apple last week filed for a trademark on the term "iWeb" with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The filing is in reference to the company's Web site creation and publishing software, introduced earlier this month as part of the new iLife '06 digital lifestyle software suite.

As previously reported, Apple developed iWeb with the intent to leverage and boost sales of its .Mac Internet service, which recently surpassed the 1 million mark in active subscribers. If initial sales are of .Mac 4.0 are of any indication, the new version of iLife with iWeb is doing just that.

Tipsters tell AppleInsider the new version of .Mac is selling extremely well, with some Apple retail and reseller locations running out of their initial supply of the retail-boxed copies. It's the "iWeb halo effect," they say.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1494