From: RobertB 

Not an accountant, but wondering how rare this type of deferred posting of
revenue is in large corporations? I've heard of amortizing expenses but not
revenue.



In article ,
 mike  wrote:

> http://ce.seekingalpha.com/article/33722?source=d_email&u=30680
>
> ===
> Carl Howe (Blackfriars Communications) submits: I'm still reeling from
> Wednesday's conference call with Peter Oppenheimer, CFO of Apple (AAPL).
> Yes, we're going to have to redo our financial projections for Apple,
> but that's not the thing that's got my mind spinning. It's the fact that
> with very little fanfare, Apple has just blown past where everyone else
> was and reinvented the business model for its consumer electronics
> business.
>
> We just published our Analyzing Apple report yesterday, but we're going
> to publish a revision free of charge today to all the people who bought
> it. This announcement completely changes the Apple forecast for the
> foreseeable future.
>
> It was just last week that people were raving that Apple was going to
> introduce music subscriptions for iTunes. DRM companies like INTENT
> Mediaworks were claiming that it was almost a done deal because of the
> record labels' lust for recurring revenue.
>
> They were so wrong.
>
> Yes, Apple is introducing subscriptions. But they are for iPhones and
> Apple TV, not for music. And it's not like a subscription to the Boston
> Globe where you pay every month; it's like a subscription to the Wall
> Street Journal where you pay the full price up front, and the company
> gets to sit on your money. Nice work (and cash flow) if you can get it.
>
> You can listen to Peter Oppenheimer yourself on the Apple earnings
> conference call or read it at SeekingAlpha.com. He dropped the bombshell
> in his opening remarks:
>
>
>  >>
>
> Before I talk about the outlook for the June quarter, I'd like to
> provide a little more information about our strategy for the iPhone and
> Apple TV and how we plan to account for them. We believe the iPhone is a
> revolutionary device that is years ahead of the competition. At
> Macworld, we demonstrated a number of the iPhone's breakthrough
> features, including its pioneering multi-touch display and user
> interface, visual voicemail, desktop class e-mail and web browsing, and
> of course, the best iPod ever.
>
> We plan to build on this incredible foundation by continuing to develop
> new software features as well as entirely new applications and
> incorporate them into the iPhone. Since iPhone customers will likely be
> our best advocates for the product, we want to get them many of these
> new features and applications at no additional charge as they become
> available. Since we will be periodically providing new software features
> to iPhone customers free of charge, we will use subscription accounting
> and recognize the revenue and product cost of goods sold associated with
> iPhone handset sales on a straight line basis over 24 months. So while
> the cash from iPhone sales will be collected at the time of sale, we
> will be recording deferred revenue and costs of goods sold on our
> balance sheet, and amortizing both of them into our earnings on a
> straight line basis over 24 months. We will continue to expense our
> iPhone engineering, sales and marketing costs as we incur them. This
> accounting policy will have no impact on cash flow or the economics of
> our business.
>
> Apple's proven capability to create innovative software gives us a
> tremendous competitive advantage in the consumer electronics industry.
> We are taking this bold step to leverage what we do best. We hope the
> result will be to surprise and delight our iPhone customers, which
> should result in happier customers and more customers as we enter this
> billion unit per year mobile phone market. We also plan to recognize
> payments from AT&T Cingular as revenue over time, as earned. We will
> report iPhone results each quarter that will include unit sales, and
> recognize revenue for iPhones, iPhone accessories and payments from AT&T
> Cingular.
>
> Similar to iPhone, we plan to periodically provide new software features
> and enhancements at no charge to our Apple TV customers. We will also

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