As Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner said in a note raising his target price on the company’s shares to $425, “It’s no surprise when Apple tops expectations, but it’s fairly rare to see it trounce Street’s targets on almost every line. Bottom line: big as Apple is, it shows no sign of slowing, not with the Verizon iPhone launching in 2Q11 and China growth accelerating to 400% year-over-year.”

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster raised his price target to $483 from $438, observing in a research note that this quarter was the first in three years in which Apple issued EPS guidance above Street consensus (10 percent ahead of the Street). “Apple’s vision for itself as a mobile device company has come to fruition,” he said. “[The company] guided the March quarter more aggressively than it typically guides the out quarter relative to the Street. We see this as sign that it is bullish on the prospect of the iPhone at Verizon.”

At Deutsche Bank, Chris Whitmore slapped a price target of $440 on AAPL. “Apple continues to show impressive growth despite its size and is well positioned to benefit from the confluence of three major product cycles, namely: iPad, Macs and iPhone,” he told clients. “These product cycles coupled with greater geographic expansion (Verizon iPhone, iPad 2, iPhone 5, China expansion, Carrier deals) increases our confidence in AAPL’s ability to continue to outperform.”

At Barclays, Ben Reitzes raised his target to $450 from $420 to account for higher unit sales across Apple’s product portfolio. His take on Q1: “This very strong quarterly report left no holes to punch in the fundamental story. We believe the above-consensus revenue and EPS guidance and new products to come bring potential for further upside. We continue to believe the company is in very capable hands with COO Tim Cook and the rest of the team.”

Raising his price target to $450 from $430, Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope said essentially the same thing. “While the news of Steve Jobs’ medical leave may continue to add some headwinds to the share price momentum in the near-term, we continue to believe improving underlying fundamentals and the strength of Apple’s overall management team will counter this uncertainty. In addition to the strength of the December quarter and the recent Verizon iPhone release, we believe the next-gen iPad launch and the June iPhone refresh will serve as critical catalysts in the first half of 2011.”

UBS analyst Maynard Um ratcheted his price target up to $465 from $415, predicting what “could be the largest pre-order & sales ever experienced by Verizon Wireless for the iPhone” and continued success for the iPad. Said Um, “Though there has been increasing concern with regard to ramping competition, we see Apple’s ecosystem and ease of use as offering a more compelling value proposition than its competitors today and expect its tablet market share to more closely match its iPod market share in the mp3 player market rather than its share in the more fragmented smartphone market.”

And, finally, there was Ticonderoga’s Brian White, who took a “F@&k Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades” approach and raised his target price to a staggering $550. That’s about 60 percent higher than the price Apple shares have been trading at recently, a target that if the company were to hit, would value it at $506.6 billion. Said White, “Despite Monday’s news regarding Steve Jobs’s medical leave of absence, we believe it will be difficult to keep Apple’s stock from reaching new highs given the much stronger than expected quarter and outlook reported by the company.”

Bullish, or another word with a lot of the same letters? Hard to say. But as you weigh that question, remember this: This is the 33rd consecutive quarter in which Apple has beaten estimates. And this time it beat them by $2 billion.

The deal calls for the pair to align their development plans so that they can offer combined products. The first fruit of the alliance is their Integrated Cloud Delivery Platform aimed at service providers and large companies looking to build their own private cloud installations.

They promise to take much of the hassle out of building and deploying cloud services: It will be easier to turn on and configure new services, and customers will be able to manage their services on their own via a self-service portal. Cisco has also agreed to become a reseller of two BMC products on its Cisco Unified Computing System.

Cisco shares are up more than two percent today, primarily on a positive note from Ittai Kidron at Oppenheimer & Co. Tiernan Ray at Barron’s notes that Kidron has gone through several Cisco product lines, adjusting estimates along the way. One Cisco product he likes? You guessed it: The Unified Computing line.

Cisco shares have been struggling since the company sent mixed signals with its first-quarter earnings. Meanwhile, BMC shares are down.

Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray
While Apple had yet another stellar quarter, investors will wonder if the pace of growth is sustainable. We believe it is, given Apple has small market share in large, growing markets. We estimate that if Apple meets our Mac, iPhone, and iPad targets in 2011, the company will have only about 5 percent market share in the phone and computer markets, a number that will likely grow over time.

Mike Abramsky, RBC
Apple is now benefiting from what we are dubbing a “Cascade of Cool”–three strong, synergistic product cycles–iPhone, iPad and Mac, combining together synergistically to drive the strongest outperformance in 4 years–with more to come, as Apple remains well positioned against large, addressable markets. Additional drivers/catalysts expected include international rollouts, voice to Smartphone adoption, PC to Mac migration, enterprise adoption.

Chris Whitmore, Deutsche Bank
While current quarter results were very impressive, we see open runway for the 3 major product cycles ramping in C2H10 and beyond which should drive continued momentum. The iPad is off to a very strong start with demand characterized by Apple as “amazing” with widespread appeal to the mass market (i.e. already moved beyond “early adopters”). iPhone 4 demand is outstripping supply despite widely publicized antenna concerns (which we expect to dissipate). Both products continue to ramp internationally (iPhone with 154 carriers in 88 countries) while iPad will be available in 9 additional countries by July 23rd. Finally, we expect the recently refreshed MacBook lineup (and future updates) to perform well in the back-to-school and holiday seasons.

Yair Reiner, Oppenheimer
We were expecting Apple to deliver a strong F3Q10. But we hadn’t girded ourselves for a mammoth revenue forecast, and neither, we believe, had the Street. To those (like us) who fretted that Antennagate might hamper iPhone sales, Apple’s guidance seems to say “antennagate schmantennagate.” Apple is seeing a swell of demand across its product lines and increasingly compelling evidence that the iPhone has unleashed a halo effect in the international markets. These are facts on the ground that even Apple’s stubbornly bearish guidance can’t resist.

Charlie Wolf, Needham and Co.
This is the Apple story in a nutshell. The company remains a small fish in some very large ponds. Despite a quadrupling of shipments over the past several years, the Mac, the major surprise in the third quarter with record shipments of 3.5 million, still commands a small share of the PC market. The iPhone’s share of the fast growing smartphone market is likewise comparatively small. And while the iPad is in a class of its own, it’s beginning to cannibalize the much larger netbook PC market. Indeed, the iPad has jumped to the mainstream market, passing through the early adopter market in an instant.

Maynard Um, UBS
Guidance was much stronger than expected as the rev outlook of ~$18b was uncharacteristically higher (by $1bn) than Street ests. We believe AAPL typically guides to a conservatively achievable target, making guidance all the more impressive. With AAPL selling nearly every iPad/iPhone 4 produced, key variable to magnitude of pot’l upside will likely be the pace of capacity increases.

Katy Huberty, Morgan Stanley
The market underestimates the earnings power of Apple’s mobile Internet devices. We view the combination of new product launches, broader distribution (carrier, international, enterprise), more attractive pricing and strong upgrade rates as the key demand drivers over the next two years. Additionally, we believe iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad margins will remain above the corporate average, driving EPS upside as mix improves.

As you can see, Apple’s financial performance has sent the analyst community into paroxysms of praise. Not a week after its Antennagate press conference, the company already seems to have extricated itself from the public relations quagmire surrounding the iPhone 4’s reception woes.

As RBC analyst Abramsky quipped, there’s no deodorant like success.

So says Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan, who reached that conclusion after some investor meetings with AT&T (T) CFO Rick Lindner. “The company gave some solid reasons as to why the iPhone will not affect its financial results all that much, but also why Verizon is unlikely to get it until the second half of 2011, or later,” he said in a research note this morning.

One big reason: Apple’s (AAPL) quality and design aesthetic, which might be undermined by the requirements of a LTE- or CDMA-capable iPhone.

“If Apple makes a CDMA iPhone, it will probably not be as streamlined as AT&T’s iPhone 4 (different capabilities and it will not be as fast a network),” Horan writes. “As to the probability of an LTE iPhone device, AT&T made a bunch of good technical points on why Apple may have to wait until LTE technology matures from an OS and technology perspective. In addition the device will probably be larger (given the three different technologies that it would need to support and a larger battery), which will not make Apple happy.”

That said, Horan believes the long-rumored Verizon (VZ) iPhone is an inevitability. “The fact that AT&T moved up its upgrade cycle for current iPhone subscribers and increased early termination fees is a major signal that Verizon will be carrying the iPhone sometime next year. And in reality Apple could probably sell 10 million devices to Verizon’s customers over a 12 to 18 month period.”

For most folks, the device is a discretionary purchase.

“When we asked people why they were buying the iPhone 4, the vast majority indicated that their decision was driven by desire rather than need. Folks didn’t line up because their old phone was failing them in some way; they lined up because the iPhone tugged at them. Only 26 percent of the people we spoke with said that they needed a new phone. The remaining 74 percent were enticed into a discretionary purchase,” Reiner reports.

“Of respondents, 50 percent said that the iPhone 4’s new features pulled them in,” the analyst added. Of those surveyed, 11 percent said they had wanted to buy an iPhone for some time and were just waiting for the moment when they could buy the last version. Thirteen percent reported that they always buy the latest iPhone when it comes out.”

Of the 76 percent of respondents who already owned an iPhone, most were upgrading it after just 14.7 months–quite a bit faster than typical smartphone replacement cycle of 21 months. (Click on charts below to enlarge.)

Intel is considered a bellwether for the tech sector because it provides the chips that go into most of the world’s computers. In January, Intel reported one of its most profitable quarters ever, and analysts are expecting strong processor demand in the first quarter of 2010. Compared with the same period in 2009, the semiconductor market is expected to show significant improvement–which shouldn’t be too difficult, given the dismal market amid the economic crisis last year. Specifically, most analysts are looking for confirmation of growth coming from corporate purchases, rather than just strong demand from consumers.

“Things Are Good in PC, but Don’t Tell Anyone”–the title of the pre-earnings report from Oppenheimer–sets the tone for analysts. Oppenheimer’s Rick Schafer writes that he is looking for “a strong PC cycle in 2010,” driven mainly by a rebound in business spending.

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RBC Capital analyst Mark Sue asserted in a research note dated Sunday that he thinks the company has already sold 700,000 to 800,000 Droids, which should make it possible for the company to hit his estimate of 1 million Droids for the quarter. Sue notes that consumers like the phone’s screen and fast processor, but think it could “lose some weight.” Sue also notes that sales of the Cliq and Dext phones are “okay,” but “not great.”

Oppenheimer analyst Ittai Kidron is more conservative: he thinks Droid sales are running slightly behind plan, and that sales for the quarter will likely be 750,000 units. He also says T-Mobile seems to have become “disengaged” from the Cliq, and hasn’t sold many.

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“We are very impressed by Apple’s ability to post a record profit quarter during difficult macro spending conditions,” Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek said in a note to clients this morning. “A host of new product introductions and continued traction with the iPhone give us confidence in the sustainability of Apple’s operating model.”

Suffice it to say, Misek wasn’t the only the analyst lauding Apple’s (AAPL) fourth-quarter performance. Below a selection of commentary from other Apple watchers:

Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray
“September results were strong despite headwinds of iPhone production constraints and a Mac desktop offering in need of a refresh. We expect these headwinds to become tailwinds in the December quarter, which we believe will be positive for AAPL shares in the coming months.”

Mike Abramsky, RBC Capital Markets
“With strong financial performance and product uptake amidst recession, and further catalysts (iPhone in China, Tablet, refreshed iMacs, iPhone share gains/momentum), we foresee further upside for the shares.”

Maynard Um, UBS
“Upside to virtually every metric in the qtr backs our positive view on Apple. We continue expect greater “recurring” iPhone hardware revenue (growing installed base & stickiness of the App Store), which should drive more visibility into iPhone sales (20%+ of our FY10 iPhone shipments), as well as iPhone expansion driven by new partnerships (& end of exclusivities). Longer term, we believe a service to provide seamless access & mobility of digital content across all products may be the draw (halo) that drives additional future Apple product sales.”

Tavis McCourt, Morgan Keegan
“Overall, Q4:09 was a strong quarter for Apple, as the Mac is nearly becoming the de facto computer for the back-to-school season. Additionally, iPhone trends remain remarkably strong, with unit economics holding up at unheard of levels in the wireless industry.”

Yair Rainer, Oppenheimer
“As usual, Apple appears to be leaving plenty of room for upside surprises to both revenue and margins. On the revenue side, Apple should benefit from continued Mac momentum (particularly in Europe), higher recognized iPhone revenue, and some channel fill for both Mac and iPhone. Gross margin upside is likely to come from a higher proportion of recognized, high-margin iPhone revenue.”

“We are very impressed by Apple’s ability to post a record profit quarter during difficult macro spending conditions,” Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek said in a note to clients this morning. “A host of new product introductions and continued traction with the iPhone give us confidence in the sustainability of Apple’s operating model.”

Suffice it to say, Misek wasn’t the only the analyst lauding Apple’s (AAPL) fourth-quarter performance. Below a selection of commentary from other Apple watchers:

Gene Munster, Piper Jaffray
“September results were strong despite headwinds of iPhone production constraints and a Mac desktop offering in need of a refresh. We expect these headwinds to become tailwinds in the December quarter, which we believe will be positive for AAPL shares in the coming months.”

Mike Abramsky, RBC Capital Markets
“With strong financial performance and product uptake amidst recession, and further catalysts (iPhone in China, Tablet, refreshed iMacs, iPhone share gains/momentum), we foresee further upside for the shares.”

Maynard Um, UBS
“Upside to virtually every metric in the qtr backs our positive view on Apple. We continue expect greater “recurring” iPhone hardware revenue (growing installed base & stickiness of the App Store), which should drive more visibility into iPhone sales (20%+ of our FY10 iPhone shipments), as well as iPhone expansion driven by new partnerships (& end of exclusivities). Longer term, we believe a service to provide seamless access & mobility of digital content across all products may be the draw (halo) that drives additional future Apple product sales.”

Tavis McCourt, Morgan Keegan
“Overall, Q4:09 was a strong quarter for Apple, as the Mac is nearly becoming the de facto computer for the back-to-school season. Additionally, iPhone trends remain remarkably strong, with unit economics holding up at unheard of levels in the wireless industry.”

Yair Rainer, Oppenheimer
“As usual, Apple appears to be leaving plenty of room for upside surprises to both revenue and margins. On the revenue side, Apple should benefit from continued Mac momentum (particularly in Europe), higher recognized iPhone revenue, and some channel fill for both Mac and iPhone. Gross margin upside is likely to come from a higher proportion of recognized, high-margin iPhone revenue.”

In a note to investors today, Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner warned that supply-chain issues may have prevented Apple (AAPL) from selling the seven million iPhones consensus estimates have been predicting. “During the iPod event on Sept. 9…Apple implied that ~3.5M phones had been sold with only 21 days left in the quarter,” Reiner wrote. “Subsequent checks showed the iPhone 3GS sold out in many markets. Something was clearly preventing Apple from shipping to demand.”

Apple was able to resolve those issues, but they lasted long enough that Reiner fears consensus estimates implying that the company sold an additional 3.5 million iPhones in the final weeks of the quarter may be a bit too aggressive.

That said, it’s worth noting that Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster pointed out the same supply issues in a research note of his own earlier this week and came to a very different conclusion. Munster is calling for iPhone sales of about 7.5 million units in the Sept. quarter.

Who’s right? We’ll find out Monday, when Apple reports earnings.

In a note to investors today, Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner warned that supply-chain issues may have prevented Apple (AAPL) from selling the seven million iPhones consensus estimates have been predicting. “During the iPod event on Sept. 9…Apple implied that ~3.5M phones had been sold with only 21 days left in the quarter,” Reiner wrote. “Subsequent checks showed the iPhone 3GS sold out in many markets. Something was clearly preventing Apple from shipping to demand.”

Apple was able to resolve those issues, but they lasted long enough that Reiner fears consensus estimates implying that the company sold an additional 3.5 million iPhones in the final weeks of the quarter may be a bit too aggressive.

That said, it’s worth noting that Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster pointed out the same supply issues in a research note of his own earlier this week and came to a very different conclusion. Munster is calling for iPhone sales of about 7.5 million units in the Sept. quarter.

Who’s right? We’ll find out Monday, when Apple reports earnings.

Oppenheimer analyst Ittai Kidron observes in a research note that the company continues to plan the spin-off of its crumbling handset business sometime next year. But he says checks suggest the company is in the middle of strategic planning process that could lead to other asset sales as well over the next 12 months.

In particular, he thinks the company is considering narrowing its focus to the government and enterprise markets, and gradually transitioning its carrier and cable businesses. He says the company is “in advanced discussions” with Huawei on a sale of all or parts of its wireless infrastructure business, and that it is also reviewing the possible sale of its set-top box business.

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Oppenheimer analyst Ittai Kidron thinks so. In a research note this morning, Kidron asserted that “management could revisit the planning process for the Mobile Device spin-off in the near future, which would signal growing confidence in the upcoming [handset] portfolio and raise the likelihood of unlocking the unit’s value.”

Kidron today repeated his Outperform rating on the stock, and increased his target price to $7, from $5. He said the company is not likely to miss estimates for Q1, and adds that there is even “a small chance for upside as both handset ASP and margins could be better than expected.”

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Oppenheimer’s Yair Reiner trimmed his iPhone targets, but raised his MacBook forecasts, and increased his gross margin estimate. For iPhones, he now sees 4.8 million units in the December quarter, down from 7.5 million. His FY ’09 unit forecast drops to 21.3 million from 27 million. He also sees lower ASPs than previously, due to the impact of the strong dollar on international sales. On the other hand, he raised his Q1 MacBook estimate to 1.61 million from 1.54 million; for desktops, he trims to 960,000, from 1.02 million. His gross margin estimate for the quarter increases to 31.5 percent from 31 percent, to reflect lower component pricing.

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One interesting development in today’s whipsaw session was the emergence of what appears to be some selective bottom-fishing. Apple (AAPL) was the most obvious example; the stock rebounded $8.06, or 9.1 percent, to $96.80, aided by some bullish comments from Oppenheimer as well as anticipation of the company’s pending launch of new laptops at an event on Tuesday.

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Oppenheimer’s Timothy Horan this morning asserted in a research note that “we are in the midst of a cyclical slowdown in consumer communications that reflects the convergence of increased supply with slowing consumer demand.” Horan thinks the environment will “worsen noticeably” in the second half, “coinciding with a land grab for high-value customers in the wireline and wireless industries.” His advice is to avoid consumer-focused communications stocks for the intermediate term, and to look for cheaper bets.

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Last month, Reiner cut his rating on the maker of touchscreens used in mobile phones and other devices–on the theory that the aggressive $199 price tag on the new Apple (AAPL) iPhone 3G “will limit the market opportunity for Synaptics’ stable of potential customers.”

Today he changed his mind and flipped back to an Outperform rating, from Perform. “We downgraded a month ago on the thesis that the iPhone’s price reduction would curtail the market opportunity for the competing touchsceen handsets that Synaptics supplies,” he wrote today. “Our thesis was wrong.”

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Hargreaves contends the new business model for the phone improves near-term cash flow, but does change the overall profitability of the device. He says the initial subsidy–which he puts at $350 per unit, higher than the $325 estimate calculated by Oppenheimer’s Yair Reiner–will roughly offset the net present value of monthly payments the company received from AT&T under the model used for the first version of the phone.

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CEO David Aldrich said the company, which makes chips for the wireless handset business, can outgrow the overall wireless industry; he also said the company believes it can expand both gross margins and operating margins. At the gross margin level, the target is 42%, up from 40% in the latest quarter.

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