Surprise of surprises, CNET has a-- gasp!-- slightly negative spin on Apple's recent price cuts. Alert the media! Okay, okay... for the most part, it's not really all that negative, but the article does address Apple's ongoing inventory problem, and the news isn't good. You may have missed it in the veritable flood of bad financial mojo during Apple's last earnings warning, but the word on the street back at the beginning of December was that Apple was sitting on a whopping eleven weeks' worth of channel inventory heading into the heart of the holiday shopping season. Following Apple's relatively aggressive December marketing push (and more rebates than Imelda Marcos had shoes), CNET reports that Apple has emerged in January with... eleven and a half weeks' worth of inventory.

Yes, according to CNET (who in turn quotes market researcher ARS), all those Jeff Goldblum ads and rebates intended to help reduce Apple's inventory woes wound up leaving the company slightly worse off than before. See what a 40% drop in sales during a holiday season can do? These revised inventory numbers may certainly explain Apple's sudden panicked price plunge on overstocked systems last weekend. Why, an independent observer looking at these figures might well form the opinion that Apple is in danger of imminent collapse under the weight of its own unsold inventory.

But wait! Just because CNET says it doesn't make it so. We're not sure who CNET talked to at ARS to get that eleven-and-a-half-weeks number, but according to MacCentral, analyst Matt Sargent estimates Apple's inventory to be "about six to seven weeks" at the end of December. Oh, sure, analysts frequently disagree on estimates of stuff like this, but of particular note is the market research firm for whom Mr. Sargent works: ARS. The very same people who (allegedly) told CNET that Apple's inventory problem had actually increased slightly, instead of decreasing by 35-45% as Sargent estimates. Either Mr. Sargent's been at the Jekyll-and-Hyde mix lately, or CNET is misreporting the facts. We'll let you decide for yourselves which scenario is more likely.