After Strong Quarter, Apple Signals Changes in Its Prices - NYTimes.com

Looks like both Apple and Microsoft are doing what's right in terms of customers and competition, instead of appeasing Wall Street

But the company’s stock fell about 10 percent on Monday in after-hours trading as Apple executives hinted during a conference call about Apple’s

third-quarter financial statement that they would price products more aggressively in the future. It planned on taking away what Peter Oppenheimer, the company’s chief financial officer, called an “umbrella for our competitors.”

The company also told Wall Street analysts to expect lower gross margins and made a conservative sales estimate for the final quarter of the 2008 fiscal year. Executives sketched out a series of reasons for the profit margin decline, including educational discounts, component price adjustments and a new product line that is widely rumored to include redesigned laptop computers.

After Strong Quarter, Apple Signals Changes in Its Prices - NYTimes.com