So whaddaya think, is the economy finally getting better? The only reason we even consider the remote possibility is because the number of wild-eyed bank officials clinging desperately to our pants legs and begging us to take out a series of low-interest loans has dropped back into the single digits, and for one brief shining moment earlier in the week, the AtAT stock portfolio had actually edged into the black by six whole bucks! Boy howdy, we hadn't seen that much excitement around here since we tried to microwave half a grape!

Well, whenever the economy does really start to recover, certain computer companies will start raking in extra cash as businesses begin investing in high-tech hardware again-- and BusinessWeek reports that S&P Ratings Services expects Apple to be among the very first companies to benefit from increased corporate hardware spending.

Wait, Apple? Yeah, we know, it sounded weird to us, too; despite recent incidents of toe-dipping into the enterprise market, Apple isn't exactly known as the premier computer supplier to Big Business. (Yet.) And yet while Dell is described as "clearly leading the list of early beneficiaries" of increased corporate spending (well, duh), Apple is remarkably listed in second place-- ahead of IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun, and SGI.

The reason why Apple is expected to benefit so much earlier than the other heavy hitters is pretty simple, actually. To start with, Macs are big in the content creation market, so it's the platform of choice in the advertising business. A better economy means more new products introduced, and more new products means more advertising to promote said products. That leads to an influx of moolah for the advertising business long before the sale of those new products brings in cash for everyone else-- which means that creative markets ("advertising, graphic, and corporate design") will have dough to blow on new Power Mac G5s pretty much right off the bat. Clever, no?

Also, "small and midsize businesses" are expected to start spending on hardware before the mondo huge companies, and Apple stands to pull in a little extra cash on Xserves and the like. And whereas companies who want to buy Macs buy from Apple, a Wintel is a Wintel is a Wintel, so early earnings by companies like IBM and HP are "limited by highly competitive industry conditions." (In other words, if you want a Wintel, Dell is cheaper.) As for Sun and SGI, their bread and butter is high-end servers, and the economy will have to recover a lot before spending on that sort of stuff really takes off again.

So, yeah-- Apple is well-positioned to benefit quickly from an economic turnaround. Who knew? Now all we need is for our 401(k)s to miraculously triple in size and we'll be back in business. Any day now...