Most of you are aware that Apple's due to announce its fourth quarter financial results this Wednesday. (Have you registered your guess yet in the Beat the Analysts contest? The clock's a-tickin'!) But did you know that Wednesday's announcement is actually a full-fledged "event"? According to Apple's web site, we'll be hearing more than just how much money Apple made last quarter and last year.

Apple will also be taking the opportunity to introduce its new operating system release, Mac OS 8.5, due just a few days later. We doubt that we'll be hearing anything about it that we haven't heard before, but it's still the "official" launch. But what we're really interested in is hearing about "the first large-scale research data on who is buying iMacs." Until now we've had to content ourselves with ComputerWare's iMac-buyer exit survey, which was informative, but perhaps not statistically meaningful-- it only contained data for 500 iMac buyers, and all of those buyers got their iMacs on the first two days the systems were available. It'll be intriguing to hear who's been buying iMacs since then, and just how many have been sold.

For those of you who, like us, can't quite make it to Cupertino for the event, Apple's going to have simulcasts shown in its business centers all over the country. (We'd love to register for the Boston one, but there's the little matter of a day job to contend with.) In addition, if you've got a satellite dish, perhaps you'd like the coordinates to watch the event in the privacy of your own home. Granted, this "event" is unlikely to be as exciting as other "events" of the past twelve months, but it still promises to be significant.

Sometimes we at AtAT feel that the spotlight at Apple is being hogged by Steve Jobs, when there are plenty of others who keep the company afloat and thriving who don't get quite enough recognition. Take, for example, money dude Fred Anderson, who works in the wings to keep the company in the black. Many "in the know" are aware of his crucial contribution to the Apple turnaround, but he rarely gets a spotlight or a close-up. The same kind of thing applies to software wünderkind Avie Tevanian, the former software whiz at NeXT who was brought into Apple to oversee software development.

But that may change for Avie, now that he's landed himself a juicy role in the upcoming "Redmond Justice" season premiere. In the big court showdown scene, Avie is credited as "Witness #4" who will testify that Microsoft tried to stifle Apple's development of QuickTime, which competes directly with its own NetShow technology. An Associated Press article indicates that Microsoft is none too happy about the so-called "broadening" of the government's case to include allegations about QuickTime, claiming that such a last-minute script rewrite calls for another six months of rehearsal time. The judge in the case instead granted a four-day extension, which isn't quite the same thing. C'est la vie.

By the way, the article also lists every witness to be called by each side in the case, so it makes a handy program for the big showdown. We at AtAT are keeping our fingers crossed for Avie's big break; if he comes off well on the stand, there's no telling how far he can go. There's no business like show business!

Remember how Microsoft had subpoenaed a couple of MIT and Harvard professors for some confidential tapes? Professors Michael Cusumano and David Yoffie are the co-authors of a new book, Competing on Internet Time: Lessons from Netscape and Its Battle with Microsoft, which is due to be published this week. As part of their research for the book, the two professors conducted confidential interviews with several high-ranking Netscape officials (including head guy Jim Barksdale). Microsoft decided that those confidential tapes would be invaluable in their struggle against the Department of Justice, and so they set out to get their hands on them.

Luckily, according to a Netly News article, Microsoft's demand for access to the tapes has been denied by a federal judge. And when we say "luckily," we're not saying that because we want Microsoft to lose. Don't get us wrong-- despite the fact that Microsoft is supposedly a big buddy of Apple these days, there's no love lost between AtAT and the Redmond Giant. But the real danger of granting Microsoft access to those confidential tapes would be the effect it would have on future corporate research. As the professors' lawyer argued, surrendering the tapes would be devastating to future research, because corporate officials "would be less likely to participate" if they knew their "confidential" words could be used against them by a competitor in a court of law.

Anyway, the judge decided to keep the tapes confidential because Microsoft's arguments were "based on the fundamental premise that a witness in a civil case will lie--" a premise that the judge simply couldn't accept, as it pretty much negates the whole basis of our court system. Hmmm... Where do you suppose Microsoft got the idea that a witness on the stand in a case like this is definitely going to lie? Maybe it's time to break out the polygraphs...