Apple Inc (AAPL)

[langostino]

$4.75 = "interesting"??

From $2.14 to $4.75. Unreal. If Apple was going to earn $4.75 in the out-year, it'd be trading at $170 instead of $70. Incredible how little basic fact-checking and editing there is these days.

As everyone should have figured, this is a blunder by the Forbes goober who wrote the story (not to mention whatever editor was completely unfazed by 122% projected growth, lol) -- the real figure is $2.75.

What's really noteworth from the research report is that Reitzes and the UBS team have now gotten direct confirmation from Apple's management that their channel checks were correct -- PC sales are in trouble this quarter. Reading the report, it's obvious they flew to California to do 2 things - get confirmation on their channel feedback, and make darned sure they had the rollout of the rest of the rest of the transition sketched out right.

"Management acknowledged potential near-term risks for Mac sales as some customers wait for new products and software to be released ... . We continue to believe that Mac sales may be adversely impacted in fiscal 2Q06 and perhaps even into 3Q06 ... " (bolded emphasis is UBS' not mine).

"We discussed Adobe and Microsoft’s software transition plans at length during our meetings. Our research indicates that new Power Macs could be announced with Intel processors by September, but Apple’s Rosetta emulation software should still be needed to run Adobe’s major high-end applications like Photoshop at that time. Given comments made by Adobe management that it will not update its key creative professional products for Mactel until Spring 2007, we believe Power Mac sales could be adversely impacted well into FY07. (emphasis mine)