tech industry
04/04/2005, 8:45am, EDT
Monday, April 4th
Best Buy to carry Mac mini soon?
Best Buy may soon begin selling the Mac mini, according to a report from Merrill Lynch. "Last week one Best Buy showed us Mac mini accessories; Mac minis are coming later." The delay may be tied to the release of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, the research firm says. Purchasers "would not be pleased if they had to plunk down an extra $129 after their $499 Mac mini purchase." Merrill Lynch expects the upgrade by the end of April, stating it should "benefit F3Q earnings." The firm sees "plenty of anecdotal evidence of Mac sales benefiting from iPod success," but sales numbers for the Mac mini "will help provide evidence of the halo effect." Merrill Lynch has a price objective of $51 per share. For the second quarter of fiscal 2005, the firm estimates earnings of $0.22 per share, but "Apple may need to post a figure north of $0.25 to satisfy investors."
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Gotta say, the presentation didn't do the mini any favors. It was in the corner next to some eMachines boxes. They had the $599 model, which made it seem expensive in comparison to the cheeeeep (in every sense of the word) stuff next to it.
Stock info, as well as Apple opening (or should I say re-opening) seller connections, is always welcome in my book!
I think the point is, why post it at all. And me, I think I'd rather be seeing the announcement of Tiger than some Best Buy info. I still can't believe no one's covered the tiger announcement on Friday. I mean, it was announced, right? All the rumors said it was going to be announced on Friday. They couldn't have been wrong, could they?
Oh, and I love Merrill Lynch. They expect 22 cents. But say investors are going to insist on at least 25 cents. But why are they expecting a higher number? Oh, wait, brokerages and analysts (like ML) who've overvalued the stock. So if Apple comes in at 22, will people blame apple for poor performance, or blame the analysts for over-inflating the stock?
I'd rather see the announcement of the new Power-PC-based Thinkpads from the collaboration between Apple and IBM/Lenovo/whoevertheyarethisweek than either, but when you call it a "news" page you're kind of supposed to post "news" on it, no matter how much more exciting rumors are.