Here’s a quick rundown: Hewlett-Packard fell more than 6 percent to $20.88. Dell fell more than 1 percent to $14.04. Apple fell slightly to $434.33. Intel fell 2 percent to $21.83. Advanced Micro Devices fell 3.5 percent to $2.52. Microsoft fell almost 4.5 percent to $28.93. Hard drive manufacturer Seagate fell 3 percent to $36.53. Western Digital fell 2.5 percent to $17.53. All told, they fell by an average of about 2.85 percent.

It was that kind of day, and the financial analysts who track the stocks of the PC makers had to jump in with their own assessments.

“We ultimately don’t believe that tablets are ‘replacing’ PCs (very few people we have met have actually retired their PC because of a tablet),” analyst Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein wrote in a note to clients today, “but they are contributing to PCs being used less — which, in turn, is pushing out the replacement cycle for PCs. This is a big deal.”

He also said that HP in particular, which according to IDC’s reckoning saw a decline in PC sales of more than 23 percent year on year in the first quarter, may miss sales estimates by more than $700 million as a result. “A key question is whether the contraction in volume (potentially $1 billion in revenue) will have a material impact on PC margins,” he wrote. “We suspect that some of HP’s share loss was the result of increased pricing discipline and a focus on margins in the quarter.”

Shaw Wu, analyst with Sterne Agee, placed at least some of the blame for the market’s poor performance at Microsoft’s door. “We frankly believe Microsoft’s strategy of forcing user interface changes that nobody wants has proven to be a disaster,” he wrote in a note issued today. “Not to mention the customer confusion with too many choices with multiple form factors.” He now expects the PC market to contract in 2013 by 5 percent, down further from his earlier 2 percent guidance.

Reserving judgment, two analysts wondered in notes to clients today if even the most optimistic outcome for Moonshot is enough to get HP on track.

Moonshot is a “step in the right direction,” wrote Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee, but he wondered if large Web companies could be persuaded to buy from HP rather than have their own custom servers built for them. “But we are not sure if big customers including Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Twitter would switch from their current model where they procure customized server and storage components from Quanta and Compal.”

And even if successful, Moonshot might not have a big enough impact to nudge HP sales upward, Wu wrote, noting that servers account for roughly 25 percent of sales, versus PCs and printers, both in decline, which combined account for about half. “We believe the company’s turnaround remains tough as it remains to be seen whether its enterprise efforts are enough to offset continued challenges in its PC, printer, and services businesses,” he wrote.

It’s also going to take a while for revenue from Moonshot sales to start showing up in HP’s results, says Brian Marshall of ISI. “While we do not anticipate meaningful revenue from Moonshot in the next few quarters, we see it as a positive step towards maintaining HPQ’s number one share position in servers longer-term.”

Not all voices were so reserved. Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights and Strategy who was on stage with HP execs at the launch today, said the most interesting thing about the Moonshot line is not the fact that it uses less energy or takes up less space than conventional servers, but that it works with all sorts of different chips to attack the computing job at hand. Yes, it supports conventional CPU chips like Intel’s Atom and ARM-based server chips like those from Calxeda, but also GPU chips from Nvidia; digital signal processor chips, like those made by Texas Instruments; and field-programmable gate arrays, the software-defined chips turned out by companies like Altera and Xilinx. That, he says, gives it “the potential to change the game in scale-out data centers.”

In a note to clients Monday, Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu said he’s hearing that Apple will collect between $6 and $8 in licensing fees for each smartphone HTC ships in 2013. While I can’t confirm the accuracy of Wu’s report, sources I’ve spoken to suggest that they’re in the ballpark — “an above-average guess,” as one quipped.

So if we take that $6-$8 figure at face value and apply it to the 30 million to 35 million handsets HTC is expected to ship next year, Apple stands to nab between $180 million and $280 million in licensing fees. Which isn’t a huge sum for a company sitting on approximately $121 billion in cash, but it’s something. And more importantly, it may set a precedent for how Apple settles similar IP battles in the future. Certainly, that’s Wu’s take.

“With both Samsung and Motorola still under litigation with Apple, the big question is whether they are closer to a settlement,” Wu wrote. “We think the answer is yes and the terms set with HTC could at least provide a blueprint. We think it is fair that Apple will get some licensing revenue for the intellectual property it has developed in making the modern smart phone and tablet with touchscreens.”

Wall Street analysts, having held back their approval for several quarters, all acted like teenagers at the last pool party of the summer, and jumped in with a batch of upgrades.

Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee raised his estimate on Cisco’s sales to $48.3 billion in fiscal 2013, which is $200 million higher than the Street’s consensus. He also expects Cisco to report a per-share profit of $1.95 next year. He left his $23 price target unchanged. “We continue to believe Cisco is an underappreciated turnaround story similar to what we have seen with Apple, IBM, and EMC in the past,” he wrote.

Sanjiv Wadhwani of Stifel Nicolaus had a similar call. He boosted his fiscal 2013 revenue estimate to $48.9 billion, and his EPS call to $1.92 per share, up from $1.86 previously, and said he was impressed with Cisco’s relatively strong enterprise sales. “While too early to call a trend, the improvement could be a signal that spending is picking up despite the uncertain macro. We characterize the tone as markedly better versus three months ago,” he wrote.

Other analysts upgrading Cisco shares include Troy Jensen at Piper Jaffray, who raised his price target to $23 from $22; Mark Sue at RBC Capital, who boosted his price target to $19 from $17; Drake Johnstone and Davenport & Co., who upgraded the shares to “buy,” with a price target of $24; and Jason Noland at Robert W. Baird & Co., who raised his target to $21 from $19.

If there was a grump in the room, it had to be Brian Marshall at ISI. He maintained his “neutral” rating on Cisco shares. “While Cisco surpassed a low bar and reported solid metrics in a few areas … overall trends are still deteriorating in our view,” he wrote. Referring to Cisco’s 75 percent boost of its quarterly dividend, and a promise to commit 50 percent of free cash flow to dividends and share buybacks, Marshall wrote: “We believe Cisco’s focus on its capital allocation and dividend policy is a sign of its maturation and limited growth opportunities.”

The good news is that before accounting for those huge charges, HP’s business is doing slightly better than expected. It raised its earnings outlook slightly for the quarter ended in July, saying it expects to earn about $1 per share, up from a range of 94 cents to 97 cents previously.

The shares rallied, gaining more than 2 percent and closing at $19.41. The announcement also gave some analysts hope that the slowly unfolding turnaround at Hewlett-Packard under Meg Whitman is entering a new phase: The difficult part where the charges are big and the layoffs and voluntary retirements are plentiful.

Analysts Amit Daryanani of RBC Capital Markets and Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee both saw the move as a positive one. Daryani maintained an outperform rating, the equivalent of a “buy” with a $33 price target, which would amount to a 70 percent boost over yesterday’s closing price. But for now he says the shares will stay in a “penalty box” until HP is done taking restructuring and impairment charges.

Wu at Sterne Agee was surprised by the upward revision in HP’s outlook: “This raise is surprising given the consensus negative view and expectations of a potential miss,” he wrote. “We view restructuring as a positive as the company is taking steps to clean up its balance sheet and reignite growth.”

While HP didn’t say anything about its revenue outlook for the quarter, Wu thinks it will be better than expected. The consensus view had HP expected to report sales of $30.3 billion this quarter. Wu kicked his estimate up a notch and says he sees HP coming in at $30.5 billion. “While the company did not provide details, we believe the EPS beat is based on better than expected revenue, as well as tight cost controls,” he wrote. His rating: “Buy” with a price target of $33.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters anticipate Apple’s third-quarter earnings will be $10.36 a share on revenue of $37.2 billion. That’s more than the $8.68 a share on revenue of $34 billion Apple forecast when it reported second-quarter earnings in April, but it’s still a bit low.

The reason? Well, there are a few, but the most oft-cited by analysts is this: iPhone sales are slackening ahead of an expected fall refresh of the device. Said Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu, “Talking to investors, there appears to be understanding that the next two quarters will be ‘choppy’ ahead of the next generation iPhone.”

The latest batch of estimates for iPhone sales falls in the 25 million to 29 million range. That’s better than the 20.34 million Apple sold during the same quarter last year, but down significantly from the 35.1 million it sold in the March quarter. Estimates on iPad sales range from 16 million units up to 20 million, which is double the number Apple sold in the same quarter a year ago.

But these are pro estimates. Independent analysts seem to be considerably more bullish about the quarter. On average, they are expecting earnings of $12.31 on sales of $41.50 billion. And they don’t see quite as big a slowdown in iPhone sales. Andy Zaky, of Bullish Cross Asset Management, one of the most accurate independent Apple analysts around, told AllThingsD he expects Apple to ship 32 million iPhones and 20 million iPads on the quarter.

And his view of the quarter overall is nowhere near as muted as that of the pros on Wall Street. “[We expect] Apple to report roughly $12.46 in earnings per share on $43.1 billion in revenue, which is well above the consensus this quarter,” he said. “I think that would be considered a blowout. … Of course, it doesn’t really matter what Apple reports on earnings, the stock is going to react positively. Short of a miss, it will gap-up on earnings. And that’s because expectations are so incredibly low for the quarter. … Apple has gapped-up after earnings 10 out of the last 12 quarters since the lows of the financial crisis, putting the odds at over 83 percent.”

Word of the dividend came a day ahead of today’s meeting with analysts in Austin, during which CEO Michael Dell said he plans to make $2 billion in cuts over the next three years. Most of the cuts — about $800 million — will come from a simplifying of sales operations. Another $600 million will come from savings in Dell’s supply chain.

Meanwhile, Dell’s evolving strategy of essentially assembling acquisitions into a credible enterprise-focused IT organization will continue apace. Dell’s target is to make data-center products and services grow by more than 40 percent to north of $27 billion by 2016. During that same period, it expects PC sales to grow by only 8 percent to $47 billion.

The problem, wrote the analyst Rob Cihra of Evercore in a note to clients sent out today, is that no matter how you slice it, half of Dell’s business is PCs, and the pressures of profit margins in that business aren’t going away. Despite Dell’s assurances that it can maintain operating margins on PCs at north of 5 percent, Cihra wondered if sagging margins might force Dell to price its machines higher and lose more ground to rivals Hewlett-Packard and Acer. “We are a bit more concerned than management that Dell can continue walking away from aggressive pricing in the name of margin stability,” he wrote. “We see this setting up as Dell’s seventh straight year of market share erosion.”

So what did analysts think of the dividend? Thumbs down. Shaw Wu of Stern Agee, in a note to clients today, worried that paying a dividend would eat into the cash that Dell needs to keep buying companies to help it continue its enterprise-focused shift.

Wu says at least one motivating factor for Dell to initiate a dividend now is that other companies are doing it, so investors expect it, especially after Apple initiated its first dividend in two decades earlier this year. “While the company did not mention this, we believe a key reason for Dell implementing a dividend policy is that it needs to do so to stay competitive,” he wrote. “In our view, the company not only competes with Apple, HP, Cisco Systems, and IBM in the marketplace, it also competes for shareholders.”

Is this simply a buying opportunity ahead of another monster quarter?

That seems to be the consensus among the majority of analysts following the company, who expect big things from Apple come Tuesday. As of Saturday, the Street’s consensus estimate was for earnings of $10 per share on sales of $36.63 billion.

And despite whatever concerns have been addling investors the past week or so, it’s highly unlikely that Apple is going to miss those numbers. With the iPhone 4S selling well and demand for the new iPad running high, a soft quarter just isn’t in the cards. If there is an area of weakness, it will likely be in Macs, where sales might be softer than usual in anticipation of an expected refresh of the line this summer.

But beyond that? Probably not much to worry about, and we can likely anticipate another strong quarter.

“Based on our supply chain checks, we anticipate a sizeable EPS beat based on iPhone and iPad strength despite Macs likely coming in a little light,” said Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu. “We believe concerns over slowing iPhone and iPad momentum are overdone and are buyers on recent share weakness.”

Evidently, the company’s newer handsets are selling fairly well. Sadly, the same cannot be said of its older ones, which are still well-represented in the BlackBerry portfolio. Making matters worse, the updated Curve 9350 isn’t doing as well as expected.

“We are picking up that the company’s higher-end BlackBerries, including the Bold 9900 and Torch 9800, are doing relatively better as users are attracted to their form factors that combine a touchscreen and keyboard,” said Wu. “[But its] other BlackBerries, which still make up a large portion of its mix, including the pure touchscreen Torch 9850, appear below plan. In addition, the reception on its recently refreshed Curve 9350 appears lukewarm.”

Given those factors, Wu figures handset shipments for the quarter will be about 11.3 million (down from 11.9 million), revenue about $4.55 billion (down from $4.7 billion) and earnings per share 86 cents (down from 95 cents).

In other words, RIM’s competitive position doesn’t seem to be improving much. Which isn’t to say that it won’t, looking ahead; just that the uphill climb facing the company might be a bit steeper than originally thought, particularly when its BlackBerry 10-based devices aren’t scheduled to ship until the “latter part” of 2012.

Dell’s earnings were 51 cents and missed the consensus of analysts by a penny; the company also said that revenue would decline by 7 percent in the current quarter. In a note to clients today, Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee dropped his rating to “underperform,” the equivalent of a “sell,” arguing that Dell’s PC business continues to suffer at the competitive hands of Apple, Acer and rejuvenated Hewlett-Packard. “We are concerned with the company’s longer-term fundamental position and may face more difficulty making further operational improvements,” Wu wrote.

Richard Kugele, of Needham and Co. in New York, downgraded Dell to a “hold” from a “buy.” Rich Gardner of Citigroup also cut his rating to “hold” and dropped his target price to $19 from $20, citing declining prospects for improvements to Dell’s gross margin in the current quarter.

But the chorus of analysts wasn’t all negative. Chris Whitmore of Deutsche Bank, who last week suggested that, all things considered, Dell’s results might turn out “pretty good,” saw it differently. He blamed the ongoing shortage of hard drives brought on by last year’s flooding in Thailand and weak public sector buying, and still finds Dell attractive. The shortage, he says, was the primary reason that Dell’s gross margins — which came in at 21.7 percent — missed estimates. “Gross margins were light due to negative hard drive impact — shortages hampered the ability to sell richer high-end systems — and soft public sector results,” Whitmore wrote in a note to clients today. He maintained his “buy” rating.

Brian Marshall of ISI maintained his “neutral” rating. He wrote in a note today that Dell’s plan of shifting its revenue base away from consumer and business PCs and toward higher-value enterprise IT, software and services is going to take years. “We believe changing the composition of a $60 billion revenue base is non-trivial and takes years not quarters to successfully navigate. [We're] still scratching our heads on how earnings per share grows in 2012. … In the face of flat revenues, declining gross margins and continued operational expense growth, we struggle on how EPS will be up in 2012. We like the plan, just not the set-up.”

(Michael Dell photo by Asa Mathat)

Recent reports have added 4G LTE connectivity and a quad-core processor to a rumored spec list that already includes Siri voice recognition, better cameras, a higher-capacity battery and a much-improved display with double the pixel density of the iPad 2.

All of which sounds entirely reasonable, and certainly like the makings of a formidable successor to the iPad 2. Enough of one that analysts are already tweaking their sales estimates upward.

“We believe this significant refresh will likely help drive higher iPad sales and help further differentiate from arguably the only real competitor in the market, Amazon’s Kindle Fire, and not to mention the myriad of Android offerings out there,” says Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu. “We are currently modeling 48 million iPad shipments for calendar 2012.”

That’s an awfully big number, but it could prove too small before the year is out. Says Wu, “[48 million] could turn out conservative.”

No matter how elegant the mythical Apple Television may be in its design, no matter how intuitive its interface, it won’t be worth much to anyone without great content. For an Apple Television to truly succeed it must crack the content code, as well. And that’s a very difficult proposition, indeed.

Which isn’t to say it can’t be done. Just that there are a lot of content partnerships and licensing terms to be ironed out before the device can ever be brought to market (if that is really Apple’s intent). Among the most important: Deals for live-broadcast TV and truly customized programming.

As Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu observes, the first of these could be solved relatively easily, by integrating the subscription services cable and satellite TV providers already offer their customers.

But that doesn’t jibe well with Apple’s existing iTunes and iCloud services. And it’s not all that disruptive. If Apple truly wants to upend the TV industry, it needs Internet-based programming subscriptions with customizable channel lineups. And, according to Wu, that’s what the company is really gunning for.

“We continue to hear what Apple would love to do is offer users the ability to choose their own customized programming, i.e., whichever channels/shows they want for a monthly subscription fee,” Wu says. “This is obviously much more complicated from a licensing standpoint. … In our view, it would change the game for television.”

It would also differentiate Apple’s television, giving it a big advantage over the competition. An easy-to-use, all-in-one TV solution similar to the iMac, plus the ability to create your own custom channel packages? To many TV viewers, that would be a godsend.

In the first group is Ticonderoga’s Brian White, who expects Apple to sell 29.9 million iPhones in the December quarter, a quarter-over-quarter increase of 84 percent. With him, BTIG Research’s Walter Piecyk, who says AT&T’s good news suggests Apple will sell 30 million iPhones in the quarter, just as he predicted in August.

In the second group: Stern Agee’s Shaw Wu and UBS’s Maynard Um. Wu raised his forecast for iPhone sales this quarter to 28 million, up from 26 million. Um went him two million better, raising his estimate to 30 million from 28 million, though he concedes even that might end up being a little light, thanks to high demand in the Asia Pacific region.

“We believe that there is a general strength across the board for iPhone demand,” Um said in a note to clients. “We continue to believe that our estimates are conservative as [they] are still below where expected build plans are.”

In other words, Apple will likely blow out iPhone sales for the quarter, just as CEO Tim Cook said it would during the company’s last earnings call.

Said Cook, “We’re very confident that we will set an all-time record in the December quarter for iPhone sales. We — in our wildest dreams, we couldn’t have gotten off to a start as great as we have on the 4S.”

The move to slash $200 and then $300 from the device’s retail price was evidently made to battle the Fire’s loss-leading $199 price. “Our understanding is that RIM was blindsided by Amazon pricing its Kindle Fire aggressively at $199,” says Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu. “We estimate that the company is losing $50-$75 per PlayBook sold.”

And it may lose more in the future.

Remember, when RIM announced last week that worse-than-expected sales of its PlayBook tablet will cause it to fall short of financial targets for its third quarter, it said it must expand its “aggressive level of promotional activity” to drive PlayBook adoption. It also said it “now believes that an increase in promotional activity is required to drive sell-through to end customers.”

Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu on Monday took a hatchet to his rating on the company, downgrading its stock to “neutral” from “buy,” and trimming his estimates for 2012 and 2013 earnings. And, notably, he conceded he should have done so earlier.

“Looking in retrospect, we should have downgraded in mid-October when the stock was $24 and our supply chain checks indicated that while its new flagship BlackBerry Bold 9900 was doing decently, the rest of its product line was lagging,” Wu explained. “We had trimmed estimates below consensus due to this. Since then, estimates have come down a bit but we believe will likely need to be reduced further.”

The main reason Wu isn’t advising his clients to sell their RIM holdings? “There is some intrinsic value in RIM as an acquisition target with its 70 million subscribers, push network, BlackBerry OS, and patent portfolio.”

Wu is latest in a conga line of analysts cutting their targets and/or ratings on the BlackBerry maker’s stock. RBC Capital Markets, Barclays Capital, Sanford C. Bernstein, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase — all have slapped downgrades on the beleaguered RIM in the past six months. And RIM’s stock has reaped the whirlwind for it. Shares in the company have plummeted more than 70 percent this year, slipping below book value earlier this month and consistently charting new 52-week lows.

In the run-up to RIM’s quarterly results in mid-December, the situation looks increasingly grim. Here’s hoping for some good news about the company’s new BBX platform come Dec. 15, when RIM reports third-quarter earnings.

While Siri still has a way to go if it is to popularize voice as the next major user interface, its natural-language processing and automation abilities are already good enough to be a real competitive advantage for Apple in the mobile market.

It’s pushing competitor costs up, as rivals scramble to come up with equivalent voice command offerings — not a cheap or easy feat, considering the level of Siri’s applied artificial intelligence and speech comprehension.

And better than that, it’s creating a consumer bias towards the 4S, Apple’s newest iPhone and presumably the one with the highest margins.

Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu says his latest checks with industry and supply chain sources show broad sales strength across Apple’s entire iPhone portfolio, but most of all for the 4S. Evidently lots of folks who could be spending $99 on the iPhone 4 are opting to fork over another $100 for the 4S — and a lot of them are doing it for Siri.

“Despite global macroeconomic headwinds, Apple continues to defy conventional wisdom with a higher-end product mix,” Wu says. “Talking to industry sources, what’s driving the 4S is better than expected reception of its new Siri software.”

The reason for that? Siri’s voice recognition actually works — and pretty consistently, unlike competing solutions, which are often unreliable. And as of today, it’s still in beta. So it will certainly get better and more powerful over time. And it will continue to drive sales.

To wit, Wu’s forecast for the December quarter, which we’re only about a third of the way through: 26 million iPhones — a new record.

That’s the gist of another rebuttal to Hong Kong-based J.P. Morgan analyst Gokul Hariharan’s claim that the company is cutting orders to vendors in its iPad supply chain, this one from Sterne Agee’s Shaw Wu.

In a Tuesday morning research note, Wu added his voice to others seeking to correct the evidently mistaken impression that iPad demand is flagging, saying build plans for the device remain “well above expectations.”

Though reports of production cuts may have some merit, they’re no cause for concern, said Wu.

“From our understanding, these production cuts are due to much improved capacity and Apple actively managing its inventory in front of what is likely an iPad refresh in the March quarter,” Wu explained. “The iPad 2 started shipping in March 2011 making the product likely due for an update near its 1-year anniversary. We would also like to remind investors that production changes are common throughout a quarter and through the lifecycle of a product.”

In other words, the Monday morning scare that sent shares of Apple briefly downward was unmerited. Said Wu, “Our distributor checks indicate demand remains strong.” His estimates for iPad shipments in the second half of the year: 12 million in the September quarter and 15 million in the December quarter.

It’s a mixed bag. While they all seem to agree that HP’s board is right to push out CEO Léo Apotheker, especially in light of the stock performance, a confused strategy and a jarring change in emphasis, none seem ready to endorse the ascendance of Meg Whitman, the former eBay CEO and current HP director, to that company’s top job. Yet like it or not, the HP board meeting that will make it all official is underway, and as AllThingsD has reported, Meg Whitman will be named HP’s CEO at the close of markets today.

Toni Sacconaghi of SanfordBernstein, the author of a widely circulated note last week describing how “exasperated” HP investors are, weighed in again. “We are not surprised by HP’s stock’s reaction yesterday, given that our conversations with shareholders and investors over the past month revealed a level of exasperation that we have not seen directed at HP or any other company in our universe in our 13 years following the sector,” he wrote in a note today.

He also slammed HP’s board. “Our conversations with major shareholders also indicate that they have been disgruntled with the board, given it has made and approved a series of decisions” — including the ouster of the prior CEO Mark Hurd, the Autonomy deal, the premature announcement of the PC-spinout — “that many shareholders believe were poor decisions and misaligned with their interests,” he wrote.

Nor is he a fan of the Whitman hiring. HP needs to search far and wide and also internally for another CEO, Sacconaghi says. “We would view any decision not to conduct a comprehensive search of internal and external candidates for a permanent CEO role as unsatisfactory and unnecessarily hasty,” he wrote. “We also believe that shareholder reaction to Whitman as a permanent CEO would be mixed.” He also thinks CFO Cathie Lesjak, notable for filling in as interim CEO during the Hurd-to-Apotheker transition, may be leaving.

Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee is pretty much in agreement with Sacconaghi. “Given the disappointing financial performance over the last few quarters and some questionable decision making including the high purchase price of Autonomy, handling of the spinoff of its PC operation, and abrupt shutdown of its webOS hardware business, we are frankly not surprised that a change is being considered,” he wrote in a note to clients today. “So far, investors and even some customers we have talked to don’t seem confident in where HPQ is heading so a change is likely needed.”

But he’s not sold on Whitman. “While we believe she has proven to be a very capable manager helping grow eBay from a start-up into one of the largest internet companies, we think an ideal candidate for HPQ should have extensive experience in the enterprise market. In addition, we believe expertise in supply chain management would be helpful as well.” He goes on to name a handful of insiders and outsiders he’d consider possible successors: Dave Donatelli, who runs HP’s enterprise business; Todd Bradley, who runs the personal systems group and would be a likely CEO of that unit if it’s spun out; Steve Mills, who runs software and hardware at IBM; and Gary Moore, the COO of Cisco Systems.

Wu also says it might be a good idea for HP to keep its PC unit after all is said and done. “We estimate the business generates $2 billion in operating income per year and is the second most profitable behind Apple,” he wrote. Also the PC business isn’t so bad when you think of it as being one and the same with the tablet market. He maintained a neutral rating on HP for now.

Lou Miscioscia of Collins Stewart isn’t encouraged by the shake-up, either. Many of HP’s problems aren’t necessarily Apotheker’s fault, he says in a note to clients issued today. And he’s not sold on Whitman, arguing that she’s never run so large a company as HP and has never run one focused on the enterprise before. He maintained a neutral rating.

And while a post-Apotheker HP may undo some of his decisions, like spinning off the PC business, one thing it probably can’t do is walk away from its $10 billion purchase of Autonomy Software, says Jeffries and Co. analyst Peter Misek. Corporate takeovers are governed by strict laws in the U.K., making it nearly impossible for HP to pull out of the deal now. He rates HP shares a buy.

Evidently the market is not buying into that logic. Because according to Stern Agee analyst Shaw Wu, iPhone 4 sales remain surprisingly strong, despite the device’s advanced age and a widely anticipated October refresh.

“The biggest surprise we are picking up is unexpected strength in Apple’s iPhone business,” Wu said in a note to clients. “The reason why this is remarkable is demand for iPhone 4 remains fairly robust despite it being well known that there will be an upcoming iPhone 5 refresh. We had modeled a sizeable quarter-to-quarter decline to reflect a pause and inventory drawdown ahead of a refresh and we now think this is conservative.”

Accordingly, Wu has revised his iPhone estimate for Apple’s last fiscal quarter of the year, raising it to 18.5 million from 15.7 million. That’s less than the 20.34 million iPhones the company sold in its third quarter, but it’s impressive just the same.

And Wu is not alone in noting strong continuing demand for the iPhone 4.

Last week, Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley noted that the device remains one of the top-selling smartphones in the U.S.

“Our checks indicated strong sales of the iPhone 4, as it remained the top selling smartphone at AT&T and Verizon despite increasing consumer expectations for the iPhone 5 launch,” he wrote. “During the holiday season, we anticipate strong sales of the iPhone 5, as we anticipate a strong global launch with increased distribution to new carriers including Sprint in the U.S. market.”

Astonishing demand for a smartphone that’s been on the market for a year now, but that’s perhaps to be expected. After all, the iPhone 3GS is two years old, and it’s still selling well at AT&T.

“While the company is stating it is doing so to satisfy stronger than expected demand, our checks with supply chain sources indicate another reason may be to fulfill commitments to component suppliers and manufacturing partners,” Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu says. “This makes sense as it is not in HP’s interest to alienate the supply chain base and the company may not lose as much money as it is bringing in some revenue as opposed to taking a full write-down on commitments with no revenue.”

Better to meet those supply-chain obligations than annoy the supply chain, which will presumably continue to figure prominently in HP’s PC business whether the company spins it off or sells it outright. And if you generate a bit of buzz in the process, all the better. As Wu notes, the larger the installed base of TouchPad and webOS devices, the more valuable webOS is in a potential sale.

According to Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu, the pair of new BlackBerry 7 devices the company recently launched leave it poised to regain the footing that it lost in the wake of the iPhone and Android onslaught. With better hardware and an improved operating system, RIM is finally giving its customers a decent reason to upgrade their handsets.

“We see RIM benefiting from arguably the strongest product cycle it has seen in some time driven by its new BlackBerry 7 OS,” Wu says. “From the early reviews, they are mixed to positive, which is a marked improvement than its predecessor BlackBerry 6 OS, which received noticeably more negative reviews.”

Add to this the continuing difficulties at rivals like Nokia, and RIM may well see its fortunes take a marked turn for the better.

“We believe RIM can capitalize on the disruption in Nokia as it transitions its smartphones to Windows Phone 7 from Symbian,” Wu says. “In addition, we are picking up from our industry checks that its launch in North America will not likely happen until 2012. The reason is that Nokia and Microsoft plan to launch internationally first where Nokia is stronger before entering the highly competitive North America market. We believe this gives RIM a window of opportunity.”

Cook’s operational acumen has driven Apple’s expansion since he first joined it. As Chairman Steve Jobs once told Businessweek, “I couldn’t find anyone internally or elsewhere that knew as much as I did — so I did that job for nine months before I found someone I saw eye to eye with, and that was Tim Cook. After Tim came on board, we basically reinvented the logistics of the PC business.”

Given the importance and increasing complexity of Apple’s long-term strategic supply chain investments, can Apple manage without a COO for long?

In other words, does Tim Cook need his own Tim Cook?

“There will be a point in time where there will be a need for a successor to Tim Cook,” Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu says. “Obviously, that point isn’t now but could be in a few years.”

The most likely candidate for the job: Jeff Williams, who was promoted to senior VP of operations last summer. An Apple veteran, Williams has worked closely with Cook for over a decade and overseen some of the company’s major supply chain deals. It was Williams, for example, who orchestrated Apple’s massive flash memory purchase in 2005, one that effectively cornered the market for NAND flash and left rivals scrambling for supply. He’s also credited with leading worldwide operations for the iPhone since the device first launched.

So if someone is to succeed Cook as COO, Williams would appear to be the guy.

“My take is Apple does need a COO, and effectively has one with Jeff Williams,” says Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. “He has been VP of operations since 2004, and was promoted to Senior VP a year ago. Whether or not Jeff gets the COO title is hard to say.”

Indeed. The COO is traditionally viewed as CEO in waiting. Is Williams CEO material? That’s impossible to say at this point and it’s premature to speculate. But it’s worth noting if only because it might mean that Apple will keep the COO slot open until Williams is properly groomed for it, or the company finds a candidate it feels is more worthy.

“COOs serve two roles — to broaden a potential CEO successor and/or to divide up the administrative responsibilities in an organization,” says Harvard Business School professor David Yoffie. “It is too early for the former, and Tim Cook will have to decide if the latter is necessary. Many big companies do not have COOs, and I suspect that Apple will not appoint a new COO in the near term.”

Apple spokesperson Katie Cotton stopped short of denying further organization changes down the road, but she did insist the transition will be smooth.

“Apple is not going to change,” Cotton told AllThingsD. “Apple is a company and culture unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that. We are going to continue to make the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do.”

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While for tax reasons it’s probably more likely that HP will spin the unit out as an independent company — there are no taxes when assets are distributed to shareholders — Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu, in a note to clients issued this morning, breaks down the possible suitors should HP opt instead for a sale.

Topping the list is Samsung, which you might have guessed already. Samsung would make sense, Wu argues, given its “large size and global ambitions.” Samsung has been trying to build a PC business since 1997, when it acquired AST Research, but hasn’t gotten anywhere. But it is the world’s biggest manufacturer of DRAM memory chips, used in PCs; and the largest supplier of NAND flash memory, which forms the basis of solid-state drives that are increasingly built into notebook PCs. It’s also a big maker of LCD displays and notebook batteries. All that vertical integration, combined with HP’s consumer PC footprint — it’s the biggest supplier to Best Buy — would make Samsung the worldwide player it has always aspired to be.

Don’t ignore the other players, though. Acer, Lenovo, Sony and even Dell could all conceivably show up with a bid, Wu writes. But it will all come down to HP’s asking price, and what parts of the business are included. Wu pegs HP’s PC business as being worth $8 billion, or about $3.66 per HP share. To calculate that valuation, he assumes a premium of five times profit of $1.6 billion on $40 billion in revenue; a five percent operating margin and a 22 percent tax rate.

One potential issue to watch in a possible Samsung bid: Whether the South Korean giant asks HP to include its webOS software. Samsung is also a huge supplier of smartphones around the world, and would probably like to rely less on Google’s Android than it does now — and would want to own its own operating system. Having decided to kill the webOS hardware business, HP has indicated that it has plans to keep the software alive in some form, though enough cash from Samsung might change HP’s mind.

Wu also argues that the market has gotten too negative on the PC business in general. While it’s true that Apple’s iPad has left a historically significant mark on the PC universe, PCs aren’t dead yet — just ask Intel. Give them iPad-like touchscreens and flash drives for instant-on capability, and the market might rebound, he says. “We believe longer-term tablets and PCs are the same market. Ironically, we view Apple’s MacBook Air as the first generation of these future hybrid PCs.”

Update at 9:38 AM PDT / 12:38 PM EDT: Samsung just issued a brief statement saying it’s not interested in HP’s PC business. Such rumors are “not true,” the company says. Well it’s really not a rumor exactly, but speculation really. Somehow I don’t believe it’s the last word on the subject.

(Image, obviously, is from the sheet music of the number “Who Will Buy?” from the musical “Oliver!” Hear it below.)

Suddenly it seems incredibly popular: HP’s own Web site appears to have sold out of them. Engadget noted that the TouchPad is the hottest gadget on Amazon today, but not for the newly slashed price. At the moment, the 16GB unit is going for $454 on Amazon, and the 32GB version for $502.

Whatever this last minute mania might do to cushion the damage, the fact is that HP is taking a financial bath on the TouchPad, and not a small one, either. According to analyst Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee in San Francisco, HP’s initial order from its Taiwanese contract manufacturer, Compal, was for between 500,000 and one million units.

As we now know, sales of what we called the “OuchPad” were terrible, particularly at retailer Best Buy and pretty much everywhere else, prompting a sudden decision by HP management to kill the product and, in fact, all hardware running the webOS operating system.

So how much will HP end up losing on the TouchPad? We’ll probably never know for sure, but let’s do a little back-of-the-envelope math in order to arrive at an educated guess.

We know roughly what it cost to build each TouchPad, courtesy of a teardown analysis conducted last month by the research firm iSuppli. A 16GB TouchPad cost $306.65 to build, while the 32GB version cost $328.65.

Now let’s assume that the million-unit order is correct and that it was evenly split between 16GB and 32GB units. (It probably wasn’t, but it makes the calculation easier.) That would make HP’s combined hardware cost $317.7 million. Let’s give HP the benefit of the doubt and assume that before last week’s events it sold 50,000 units at an average price of $400. So we’ll subtract $20 million. That leaves us with $297.7 million.

Now let’s do the same calculation, this time assuming the order from Compal was for an evenly divided 500,000 units. In this case, the total hardware cost would be about $159 million, which, after knocking off that same $20 million sold, leaves us with $139 million. Thus, our range is somewhere in the neighborhood of $140 million to $300 million spent on hardware alone, depending on how many units were ordered.

Whatever the actual figure, you can bet that the cost of written-off hardware is a sizable contributor to the $1 billion cash charge HP said it will be taking in the fourth quarter, related to the shutdown of the webOS hardware business.

What else goes into that $1 billion? Costs associated with people who worked on it, who will soon be out of a job, for one thing; plus getting rid of any related assets, and so on.

And though it doesn’t factor into that $1 billion charge, it would be interesting to find out how much HP’s advertising agency spent on filming and buying TV slots for the TouchPad TV commercials starring Lea Michele from “Glee” and the Filipino boxer-turned-politician-turned-singer Manny Pacquiao. Those folks don’t exactly turn up for free. Nor do primetime ad slots. Also, as Reuters reported, those ads were still running on CNBC as of Friday.

Update: A few more thoughts on what other line items are likely within that $1 billion cash charge, courtesy of Wayne Lam at IHS iSuppli. There would have been other TouchPad models in various states of the design and manufacturing pipeline, though probably more designed and prototyped than manufactured. Then there was the associated research and development work going on with the various models of webOS phones that HP sold, not least of the which was the Veer — which oddly enough was in the schwag bag given away at D9 — as well as the Pre 3. Lam also says that HP was thought to have an exclusive contract with Qualcomm for the supply of the chips for the phones. Shutting down the hardware business might invoke some expensive contract cancellation terms, he says.

HP shares have been bashed about in recent days, in no small part because of the dismal revenue outlook issued by rival Dell on Tuesday, and also on the heels of a downgrade by BMO Capital analyst Keith Bachman. Word that the TouchPad tablet isn’t selling well at Best Buy didn’t help. Dell shares gave up more than 10 percent of their value, and HP shares appeared to fall in sympathy by nearly four percent, closing at $31.39, or more than 36 percent off their 52-week peak.

So, what to expect? More lowered estimates, if Bachman is to be believed. In a note to clients Wednesday, Bachman cut his rating on HP to “market perform” from “outperform,” even though HP is trading at an inexpensive valuation. “Poor execution, low revenue growth and negative operating income growth” have caused him to slash his price target on HP to $36 from $43.

Bachman said he expects HP to fall short on PC sales, which may cause it to miss its previously issued revenue guidance. “We think HP will modestly miss July top-line estimates, and more meaningfully miss current top-line estimates for HP’s October quarter,” he wrote.

The consensus view of analysts calls for HP to report per-share earnings of $1.09 on revenue of $31.2 billion.

Chris Whitmore, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, wasn’t quite so dour as Bachman, though he wasn’t exactly whistling Dixie about HP’s prospects, either. Saying he expects HP to report results that are in line with the consensus expectations, Whitmore wrote in an Aug. 14 note to clients that he sees a “modest risk to revenue expectations.” The continuing investment to beef up HP’s investment in the services business will put some pressure on future earnings potential, Whitmore worries.

Citing checks of HP’s supply chain and distribution channel, Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee said in a note to clients yesterday that he thinks HP will “meet or exceed” the consensus estimates, and that, as in recent quarters, enterprise hardware sales will be stronger than consumer PC and device sales. “We believe this favorable product mix, in addition to lower component costs, should benefit gross margin,” he wrote. At least there’s one vote of confidence.

Back to services for a moment. HP’s long-term strategy has been to transform itself into a bigger player in IT services, so that it can rely less on sales of personal computers and printers, both of which are subject to violent sales-cycle swings. It’s a strategy that worked out well for IBM, and the $14 billion acquisition of EDS in 2008 was a key part of it.

During HP’s last earnings call in May, Apotheker grumbled that under previous CEO Mark Hurd, now a president at Oracle, HP “over-executed operationally and under-invested strategically.” Essentially, Apotheker blamed Hurd — known as an aggressive cost-cutter — for cutting too deeply without making sufficient investments to fuel growth in higher-profit lines of businesslike services. As a result, Apotheker explained, some expensive investments would be needed over the next several quarters to get that services business where it needs to be, and these investments would eat into results for the next several quarters. (You can hear him explain it himself in a CNBC video from May, below.)

It will be interesting to see if that “Hurd’s fault” narrative is still on the table. If it is, it’s not likely to fall on sympathetic ears. In his downgrade note, Bachman at BMO criticized HP harshly for pressing this message. “We suspect that management will make the point that previous management cut HP too much. However, previous management did not provide guidance, and then miss for three quarters, particularly right after having an analyst event. We would leave blaming the previous administration to politicians — it does not work with investors.” Ouch.