Apple Computer is trading off over 1% pre-market due to Dell Computer’s ugly preannouncement. While the health of the PC market is clearly in question, I would note this from Dell’s press release:
“These estimates primarily reflect aggressive pricing in a slowing commercial market worldwide”
For the time being AAPL’s fundamentals are driven by market share gains in consumer PCs. In fact, I know over a half dozen individuals and families who have switched from windows machines to Macs in the past two months. Purely anecdotal I know but combined with AAPL’s incredibly strong laptop sales in the last quarter, I don’t think there is necessarily a read through from Dell to Apple. In fact, maybe Apple is part of Dell’s problems.