With both the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in Las Vegas (Sunday the 19th) and Apple’s second quarter financial results announcement/conference call (Wednesday the 22nd) coming up in about two weeks’ time, excitement and speculation are running high over what might be unveiled this month.
Many have already catalogued what we can probably expect to *not* see/hear during the course of these events — news of Steve Jobs, any new Macs (or iDevices for that matter, most likely), or major strategic shifts.
But most of those reports are based on basic logical reasoning, public information, historical trends/behavior patterns and simple speculation….not hard evidence or “insider information” of any sort.
At the upcoming NAB conference, we expect several significant new software announcements including major new versions (or at least previews of summer releases) of its major video/animation apps such as Motion, Compressor and Final Cut as well as the very significant possibility of two entirely new video production related Pro applications which we are in the process of seeking to bring out from under source embargo so we can speak about them in more detail soon….
If even one of these two new apps is announced, then most likely an associated rumor — “iCreate” is the name we’ve most often heard but we don’t believe that’s what it will be named for public consumption — of a new Pro authoring applications suite that will bring Apple’s most powerful software technologies down *considerably* in price to make them more accessible in this challenging economy as well as spur adoption among emerging start-ups and so on.
As with the specifics of the new Pro Apps themselves, much about this “iCreate” or “Creative Pro” bundle is still embargoed and various sources are far from being in agreement on the details; however, there may be more than one version and either way, the savings is reportedly nothing short of staggering….for as little as 20-30% more than current individual pricing for flagship Pro Apps such as Motion, Aperture and Final Cut, customers would be able to acquire an entire suite based around those applications.
We think there is also a chance that individual application prices will also drop, but the main focus at Apple continues to be innovating its way out of the current economic problems — not price-cutting their way through it and shooting themselves in the foot via the inevitable loss of quality/market leadership that would bring about.
So, NAB will be focused on new software, perhaps a few more details of Snow Leopard or even a more up to date demo build….but we aren’t expecting any big surprises.
Although the Second Quarter AAPL Financial Results and Conference Call will also be somewhat a routine matter of satisfying the company’s corporate responsibilities and answering shareholder/analyst questions which will be generally quite mundane…..this is where we see more potential for the unexpected.
We’ll be analyzing this in far greater depth, assisted by several recent and forthcoming source reports that will be coming out from under embargo in the near future, over the coming two weeks. There are a number of reasons to suspect that Apple’s financials themselves will not match up with Wall Street’s estimates in more than one area….one or two of them could be quite explosive if they are as dramatically wide of Wall Street projections as some sources have suggested, such as the possibility that profits will be somewhat lower than expected even as overall Mac and iDevice/AppleTV sales numbers continue to increase…..
Also, setting aside matters entirely specific to Steve Jobs, a huge political/human shift has taken place at Infinite Loop since the New Year and though we saw a few hints of that shift during the first quarter conference call, there is good reason to believe that we’ll see a different style of approaching the company’s outlook as well as significant hints about the company’s direction during the second half of the year which could clarify far more of Apple’s near-term roadmap than most industry pundits have come to expect from these events.
All in all, we see a lot of potential for surprises and significant change from what we’ve seen at these two events in previous years….the big question is how big will these surprises/changes be and will we really get anything truly new — rather than merely evolutionary revisions of existing software and status updates on things which the Mac Web mostly already knows — during this April that T.S. Eliot dubbed the “Cruelest Month”…..
Stay tuned for much more detail, analysis and insight into what to expect from NAB and Apple’s Q2 Financials as the events draw closer….and as always, we enjoy hearing from you; conversation and community are our lifeblood! If you’ve got a question, tip, comment, piece of “insider” information or simply a thought to share, drop us a line! Email (rumors@macosrumors.com), Twitter (http://twitter.com/MacOSRumors), AIM (MacOSRumors), or simply submit a comment using the form below!
Apple to announce its quarterly financials in just over two weeks
With both the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) conference in Las Vegas (Sunday the 19th) and Apple’s second quarter financial results announcement/conference call (Wednesday the 22nd) coming up in about two weeks’ time, excitement and speculation are running high over what might be unveiled this month.
Many have already catalogued what we can probably expect to *not* see/hear during the course of these events — news of Steve Jobs, any new Macs (or iDevices for that matter, most likely), or major strategic shifts.
But most of those reports are based on basic logical reasoning, public information, historical trends/behavior patterns and simple speculation….not hard evidence or “insider information” of any sort.
At the upcoming NAB conference, we expect several significant new software announcements including major new versions (or at least previews of summer releases) of its major video/animation apps such as Motion, Compressor and Final Cut as well as the very significant possibility of two entirely new video production related Pro applications which we are in the process of seeking to bring out from under source embargo so we can speak about them in more detail soon….
If even one of these two new apps is announced, then most likely an associated rumor — “iCreate” is the name we’ve most often heard but we don’t believe that’s what it will be named for public consumption — of a new Pro authoring applications suite that will bring Apple’s most powerful software technologies down *considerably* in price to make them more accessible in this challenging economy as well as spur adoption among emerging start-ups and so on.
As with the specifics of the new Pro Apps themselves, much about this “iCreate” or “Creative Pro” bundle is still embargoed and various sources are far from being in agreement on the details; however, there may be more than one version and either way, the savings is reportedly nothing short of staggering….for as little as 20-30% more than current individual pricing for flagship Pro Apps such as Motion, Aperture and Final Cut, customers would be able to acquire an entire suite based around those applications.
We think there is also a chance that individual application prices will also drop, but the main focus at Apple continues to be innovating its way out of the current economic problems — not price-cutting their way through it and shooting themselves in the foot via the inevitable loss of quality/market leadership that would bring about.
So, NAB will be focused on new software, perhaps a few more details of Snow Leopard or even a more up to date demo build….but we aren’t expecting any big surprises.
Although the Second Quarter AAPL Financial Results and Conference Call will also be somewhat a routine matter of satisfying the company’s corporate responsibilities and answering shareholder/analyst questions which will be generally quite mundane…..this is where we see more potential for the unexpected.
We’ll be analyzing this in far greater depth, assisted by several recent and forthcoming source reports that will be coming out from under embargo in the near future, over the coming two weeks. There are a number of reasons to suspect that Apple’s financials themselves will not match up with Wall Street’s estimates in more than one area….one or two of them could be quite explosive if they are as dramatically wide of Wall Street projections as some sources have suggested, such as the possibility that profits will be somewhat lower than expected even as overall Mac and iDevice/AppleTV sales numbers continue to increase…..
Also, setting aside matters entirely specific to Steve Jobs, a huge political/human shift has taken place at Infinite Loop since the New Year and though we saw a few hints of that shift during the first quarter conference call, there is good reason to believe that we’ll see a different style of approaching the company’s outlook as well as significant hints about the company’s direction during the second half of the year which could clarify far more of Apple’s near-term roadmap than most industry pundits have come to expect from these events.
All in all, we see a lot of potential for surprises and significant change from what we’ve seen at these two events in previous years….the big question is how big will these surprises/changes be and will we really get anything truly new — rather than merely evolutionary revisions of existing software and status updates on things which the Mac Web mostly already knows — during this April that T.S. Eliot dubbed the “Cruelest Month”…..
Stay tuned for much more detail, analysis and insight into what to expect from NAB and Apple’s Q2 Financials as the events draw closer….and as always, we enjoy hearing from you; conversation and community are our lifeblood! If you’ve got a question, tip, comment, piece of “insider” information or simply a thought to share, drop us a line! Email (rumors@macosrumors.com), Twitter (http://twitter.com/MacOSRumors), AIM (MacOSRumors), or simply submit a comment using the form below!