Memo to Toni and Kathryn: Starbucks called. They need baristas…

And, comparing that to the list of analyst and blogger predictions, I would say Turley Muller was closest, while noone was anywhere near the iPod figure.

"We began and ended the quarter with between three and four weeks of Mac channel inventory."

"We ended the quarter within our target range of four to six weeks of iPod channel inventory or a look-forward basis."

"despite launching in 20 or so additional countries and some additional channels within countries that we had previously launched, we ended the quarter with sequentially lower channel inventories.

The level that we're at we're very comfortable with. And I think you have to obviously take the changes in channel inventories in both quarters into consideration in looking at sequentially the sell through."

"Sure. I'll be specific. The draw down was about a quarter of a million."

"If you look at the Mac and the slight decline sequentially and you think about the macroeconomic environment from fiscal Q4 to fiscal Q1, I think it's a fantastic result, so I'm thrilled with it. I'll remind you we grew 9% on a sell-in basis and we did take down the channel inventory some in addition to that. "

All of the above quotes are from Oppenheimer and Cook. As you can see, Mac channel inventory was 3 to 4 weeks, when the norm is 5 to 6 weeks. Even iPod inventory may be low, since it could be as low as 4 weeks. And, the inventory levels are based upon this upcoming quarter's sales expectations, which as you know are lower, then a Xmas quarter.

You can read the conference call yourself at the following URL: http://seekingalpha.com/article/115797-apple-inc-f1q09-qtr-end-12-27-08-earnings-call-transcript?page=-1

The same happened in Mac inventory. I believe Oppenheimer said inventories dropped from the normal 5 to 6 weeks to just 3 weeks. In other words, cutting Mac inventories in half. Dropping inventories by 3 weeks could be as much as 600k Macs. Take 2.5M divide by 13 weeks and multiply by 3. Of course, you have to factor in retail sales vs internet sales.

Either way, a change in inventory levels from the norm has a huge impact on predictions since Apple rarely varies too much.

Instead of just who was closest and who was furthest from the actuals, consider highlighting lowest furthest from actual and highest furthest from actual.

This would help distinguish the overly optimistic and overly pessimistic.

If you have the Revenue numbers correct, and can make a reasonable guess at Margin based on previous quarters for Apple, and we know how many Apple shares there are, EPS is easily estimated. Well, Apple has stated they expected margin to go down, and instead, it has not significantly changed – hence a reason for underestimating EPS even if close on Revenue.

Had buy ratings on AAPL when it was at $202, and waited until it fell 50% before they downgraded to hold/sell. Gee, thanks. Now that their reasons for downgrading have proven faulty, will they revalue?

Toni Socconaghi is simply terrible. Is everyone at Piper Jaffray that bad? I had no idea that firm was so shoddy.

Mike Abramsky's target of $70/share is hard to comprehend. The company was sitting on $31.50/share in cash, and that will grow more than $3 during this, the company's slowest, quarter. At the end of the quarter, Abramsky thinks the fair value of AAPL is 2x cash on hand?! The other $35 buying the enterprise, which NOBODY feels will earn less than $5 GAAP under the absolute worst possible economic forecast. An absolute worst-case 7x earnings for a company that is bucking the macroeconomic trends? That's laughable. Put in a more realistic $6 bad-case GAAP earnings, and the laughter increases. Consider the non-GAAP earnings, and you realize that people's hobby businesses sell for a greater multiple. Value on a cash-flow basis, and you'll wonder how Abramsky ever got this job.

Seriously, with this lousy of a work product, why do these individuals still have jobs?

Certainly this week shows huge differences between AAPL and MSFT