In the late 90s, like a lot of people, I was really into investing. I mean it was sort of effortless back then. You could almost throw darts and come out with at least a 20% return. Do some actual research and you could get 70% return. Things are more normal nowadays. One of the good things I picked up then was an interest in analyzing companies.

Today I listened to the Apple earnings call for Q2 2006. In non-financial terms, that means January – March 2006. It can be a bit tedious to listen for an hour. It’s not exactly Fatboy Slim. But if you listen carefully, you can find some really interesting tidbits:

In the Apple Store, 50% are New to Mac. I’m not sure how they calculate this, but this seems to indicate a high percentage of switchers.

Apple is aware that Adobe CS2 not being Universal is holding back some Intel Mac sales. Though consumers are probably fine running Photoshop in Rosetta, Graphics Pros need a Universal Adobe Creative Suite, so Apple is working closely with them. That is reassuring.

Customer demand + appealing to Switchers drove Boot Camp and they are looking for customer feedback on the beta. It will be included in Leopard, but they are keeping mum on virtualization. Though it seemed like if they got enough requests for it, they would seriously consider putting it in Leopard.

Related to this, Apple has no plan nor any desire to sell or support Windows.

1500 Mac Apps are already Universal. And 50% of the Top 500 Mac Apps (not sure how that is determined) will be Universal by the end of April.

They sold 1.1 million Macs in a time of huge transition where I suspect they suffered from confusion from non-Early Adopters with the Intel switch. Apparently Intel iMacs sold quite well. Apple still considers the Mac mini to be a great value and the cheapest way to get into the iLife suite. Lots of questions from Financial Analysts about the iBook, but the execs don’t talk about unannounced products.

And of course, they are continuing to dominate the digital music market, selling 8.5 million iPods! iTunes Music Store continuing to do well too.

Looks like a great time to be an Apple enthusiast, an Apple developer, an Apple investor, or even a Switcher. :)