Analyst: Leopard may add US$240 to Apple’s December financial quarter
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Oct 8, 2007 at 11:10am
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster thinks Mac OS X 10.5 (“Leopard”), due before month’s end, may have a US$240 impact on Apple’s fourth quarter. In a note to clients, the analyst noted that Mac OS X 10.4 (“Tiger”), Leopard’s predecessor, was also released at the end of the first month of a fiscal quarter (April 29, 2005).
At that time, the OS X installed base was 12 million and Tiger sales added $125 million to the quarter,” Munster says. “The Mac OS X installed base is now approximately 23 million, so we expect Leopard to add approximately $240 million to the Dec. 2007 quarter. This assumes similar uptake rates to the Tiger launch, which saw 15 percent of the user base upgrade in just six weeks (eventually 66 percent of the user base upgraded to Tiger).”
The analyst is also predicting some major announcements at January’s Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco. He thinks Apple will unveil a touch-screen based PDA that’s slightly bigger than an iPhone (which some wags have dubbed the yet-to-be-announced device the Newton II) and/or an ultra-portable subcompact (the also rumored [url=”MacBook Thin”[/url]).
Submissions are being taken for the “Macsimum Macworld San Francisco 2008 Coupon Book. For details email Dennis at daseller@earthlink.net
Jay Tyler Says:
$240 doesn’t sound like very much - 2 copies? Should be easy to beat that estimate!
Posted on October 08, 2007
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
J. Scott Anderson Says:
With some updates that I expect to roll with the Leopard release, I think that the iPod touch is the new Newton. Actually, I think it is part of the new Newton family together with the iPhone. I know numerous people that would make purchases of the iPod touch if they could edit the basics (notes, calendar, contacts, etc.).
I’ve asked them why they didn’t get an iPhone. And even if they are on AT&T;, they want to keep the devices separate. The usual reason is because they like the very small size and the cheap replacement cost of the phone that they use now. Then there are others that are outright opposed to AT&T;(on just in love with their current carrier). Either way, they are not iPhone customers but they are iPod touch customers, when and if the basics are allowed.
I say “allowed” because it looks like the ability to edit was purposely removed from the touch. If the iPhone can and does do it, then certainly the touch can, too.
Posted on October 08, 2007