Here is your daily Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock news and rumors for August 23, 2010. Word is out that a Verizon (NYSE: VZ) iPhone might be further off than we thought. Meanwhile, AAPL hardware is a huge hit with business and government agencies, and the News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) iPad news service gains steam.
Verizon and Apple Still Working on iPhone Deal: With rumors of new details about Apple’s plans for a Verizon iPhone popping up on the internet daily at this point, you have to wonder just how much more pre-release hype the two companies can make. Customers want a Verizon-compatible CMDA iPhone and they know it’s coming. So what’s the hold up? According to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu, the reportedly concrete plan for Apple and Verizon to release a CMDA iPhone in January 2011 isn’t so concrete. While Wu says that Apple will definitely branch out to other mobile carriers in 2011—if they don’t, they risk being unable to maintain the steady growth the device has enjoyed over the past three years—Verizon and Apple are still in discussions about both the economics of their partnership and what technology they actually want to roll out. Wu believes that, rather than bring a CMDA iPhone to market, Verizon and Apple will release a “SVDO” iPhone that allows users to access voice and data features simultaneously. The Verizon SVDO iPhone would be a stopgap product for a more robust iPhone offering, tailored just for Verizon, at a later date.
Mac Sales to Government and Enterprise Customers Surge: Needham & Company analyst Charlie Wolf reported this morning that government agencies and businesses alike are snapping up Mac computers like they’re going out of style. AAPL’s hardware sales to government customers jumped 200.8% year over year in the second quarter of 2010, while sales to businesses jumped 49.8%. Why the sudden growth? Analyst Wolf isn’t sure. “Whether the June blip was a one-quarter phenomenon or something more enduring should be revealed in future quarters.” Apple has been putting a greater emphasis on marketing their hardware and software to larger organizations, launching initiatives like the Volume Purchase Plan to offer bulk software purchasing to schools. Do Apple’s second quarter earnings results point to the end of PC-dominance in the work place? Like Wolf says, we’ll just have to wait and see.
News Corp.’s iPad Service Staffs Up: As Investor Place reported at the beginning of the month, News Corp. is developing a brand new news service built specifically for Apple’s new tablet computer, the iPad. While firm details about the service haven’t been announced yet, recent public research sessions hosted through News Corp. publication the Wall Street Journal that have customers discussing “experiences with the iPad” seem to indicate that the project is full-steam ahead. Now it looks like News Corp. is putting together a powerful staff to run the news service. According to a post at the AllThingsDigital blog (part of the Wall Street Journal media network), Viacom (NYSE: VIA) digital distribution head Grag Clayman has moved over to News Corp to work on the iPad service alongside Jesse Angelo, executive editor of the New York Post. News Corp. still hasn’t officially announced the service and there is still no time frame for a prospective launch.
As of this writing, Anthony Agnello did not own a position in any of the stocks named here.
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