iPad

The leading investment bank Goldman Sachs (recently tagged as a “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity” by Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone) loves the iPad. As The Financial Times reports, Goldman categorizes the love rationale into Five Cs (oh, how confidently ingenious!) and expects the stock price to soar (I’d bet they are shorting Apple while they pumping the audience with bull horomes). OK, here are the 5 Cs, sit tight – buckle yourself, this will blow you away:

1. Consumption – iPad focused squarely on information consumption versus information production
2. Content – iPad relies on tight integration with content sources
3. Connected – Multiple options ensure the iPad is connected to the internet
4. Constant operation – iPad is an “instant on” device with all-day battery life
5. Commerce – Apple’s ecosystem ensures that users are always “ready to buy”

The Apple iPad will be sold in Best Buy retail outlets and “select” other retail locations (we wrote previously about the device already listed on Amazon.com). The news comes via Apple Insider which is quoting Tim Cook and his statements at a Goldman Sachs led conference event held yesterday in San Francisco. Long story short, Cook said the iPad launch will resemble the iPhone sales programs already proven to work well.

A quick note on a brief article published in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette (link):

The article focuses on Apple’s decision to go with A4 instead of Intel or Qualcomm’s chips. I reckon this topic will become more discussed in next couple of months as it underline’s Apple’s strategic decision to keep focus on hardware in order to shape its future growth.

Also, I’ve seen a number of iPad unit sales volume projections for the iPad but interestingly enough Goldman’s projection seems to keep popping more frequently than others.

Goldman Sachs estimates that Apple will sell 6 million iPads this year. By contrast, the market for mobile phones will reach 1 billion units and PC sales will be about 300 million. Still, the iPad is a high-profile attempt to crack a market that Qualcomm and Intel have set their sights on, said Jagdish Rebello, an analyst at research firm ISuppli Corp.

“Intel would have wanted to get into this device, Qualcomm would have wanted to get into this device,” Rebello said. He also expects Apple to use the A4 in future models of the iPhone.

“IPad is powered by our own custom silicon,” Jobs said at the iPad’s introduction. “We have an incredible group that does custom silicon at Apple.”

The A4 image comes to you via iFixit’s Twitter feed