Personal computer sales in the June quarter were probably about average for this time of year, writes Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope Friday morning in a note to clients, and he expects Apple (AAPL) to be “best in show” among PC vendors in the quarter.

Best in show is a term you give to dogs, but I’m sure that wasn’t the implication here.

Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey late Thursday raised his stance on the hardware sector to Attractive from Neutral, “shifting toward a more offensive stance” on his stock ratings.

“Up to this point, we have been cautious on enterprise demand based on our checks and deteriorating macro conditions,” he writes in a research note. “But now, we think downward estimate revisions are mostly behind us (down 35% since the peak in August 2008), and we see greater upside than downside to estimates into the seasonally stronger second half of the year and in 2010.” That factor, combined with a 25% decline in Goldman’s tech index since August 2008, “creates a compelling buying opportunity.”

ChangeWave’s latest Corporate IT survey shows U.S. tech spending in the process of rapidly stabilizing – with a dramatically improved outlook for the 3rd quarter.

In any case, it looks like this may be the right time for Dell to diversify away from the PC business as assets are still cheap and Dell does need to switch direction to grow further. Here are some of the targets mentioned in Dell’s “shopping lists” published by UBS, Avian Securities and Bernstein Research analysts: Acer, CommVault (CVLT), Perot Systems (PER), Salesforce.com (CRM), Sun (JAVA), Data Domain (DDUP), 3PAR (PAR), Compellent (CML), Palm (PALM), Citrix (CTXS), CSC, 3Com (COMS) etc.

Halifax is a 42 year old company that currently participates in the supply chain management industry. For the past several years Halifax had been operating as a company with sluggish revenues and inconsistent profitability.

Now, the path from “Steve is suffering from a common bug” to “a hormone imbalance has been robbing Steve of the proteins his body needs to be healthy” to “Steve has undergone a liver transplant” is obviously something of an eyebrow-raiser. But whether it was material to Apple’s business and therefore requiring disclosure isn’t clear. After all, Apple (AAPL) did just fine while Jobs was on sabbatical; the debut of new Macs, iPods and iPhones is testament to that. Beyond that, there’s this: Apple’s stock posted a 59 percent gain while he was away.

Sell-side analysts are taking a fresh look at its estimates for Apple (AAPL) ahead of the upcoming announcement of financial results for the fiscal third quarter ended June. And the pundits like what they see.

• BMO Capital analyst Keith Bachman Tuesday morning asserted in a research note that Apple should be able to maintain gross margin in the 34%-35% in the September quarter despite recent price cuts, thanks in part to a richer mix of iPhones. He thinks the company will guide lower, likely in the 32% range, reflecting its typical caution; and he expects EPS guidance as usual to come in below the consensus. He figures they will forecast $1.05 to $1.15, below the Street at $1.28. That said, Bachman today lifted his EPS estimates for FY 2010 to $6.10 from $6 on a GAAP basis, and to $7 from $6.75 on a non-GAAP basis. His new target is $152, up from $150.
• Cross Research analyst Shannon Cross Tuesday lifted her EPS estimate for the September 2009 fiscal year to $5.63, from $5.46; for FY 2010 she goes to $6.13, from $5.73. For the June quarter, she sees sales of 2.5 million Macs, 4.9 million iPhones and 10.8 million iPods. Cross sees sales in the quarter of 1.4 million Mac notebooks, down 4%, less than an estimated 8% for notebooks overall, with desktops down 4%, versus an estimated 14% drop for the overall PC desktop sector. For the June quarter, she now forecasts $8.4 billion and $1.20 a share, up from $8.24 billion and $1.16.
• Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster Tuesday writes that he is “increasingly confident” in his June quarter forecast of 2.2 million Macs and 5 million iPhones. He reports that there is a 7-10 day lead time for the new lower-priced 13-inch MacBook Pros on the company’s online store, the longest wait in over two years.
• Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes Tuesday repeated his Overweight rating and $173 price target on the stock. He notes that Apple retail store availability for the 16 GB version of the iPhone 3GS remains low; he also noted that MacBook Pro lead times lengthened this week, and that “demand for these models is quite strong.”

Apple will report June quarter results on July 21.

Data Domain has rejected EMC before, but money talks. EMC’s new $2.1 billion bid trumps NetApp’s $1.9 billion offer and will give shareholders something to think about all things being equal. In addition, Caris & Co. analyst Robert Cihra reckons that EMC (quote) could up the ante for Data Domain (DDUP) repeatedly. NetApp’s (quote) offer, however, would likely top out at $35 a share. Cihra writes:

Merrill Lynch analyst Scott Craig turned bullish on the disk-drive industry Monday morning, raising his ratings on both Western Digital (WDC) and Seagate (STX) to Buy from Underperform. His WDC price target jumps to $35, from $19; for STX, his new target is $14, up from $6.

“While some may view our upgrade as late, we expect another run in the shares driven primarily by leverage and positive earnings estimate revisions,” he writes. “We believe HDD fundamentals have improved off cyclical lows, with more encouraging pricing trends, low inventory levels, some stabilization/seasonal PC build and pending operating leverage.”

These should be warning signals. Apple was once loved like this twenty years ago, too. The company was slow to react to the evolution of the personal computer in terms of size and price. Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows OS also made the personal computer the easiest it had ever been, up until that point, to use and Apple’s OS was treated like the plague. Many thought Apple would be left behind.

The worst performing stock in the sector this year has been Lexmark (LXK), which is down 38%. FLIR, HRS, and XRX are the other stocks that are down more than 10%.

Huberty believes the first half of the year was boosted by inventory restocking, while the second half is already showing signs of a decline in restocking, buyers holding off on PC purchases before the release of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows 7 (due October 22), and the uncertainty of a rebound in Europe’s economy and the rebound in corporate IT spending generally.

Apple was the top computer hardware manufacturer site in May 2009, likely because of consumer interest in its new iPhone model, which also sent blog posts soaring after it was announced, according to (pdf) a report from Nielsen Online.

Forrester’s revision is a cut from the 3.1 percent decline expected in its March report. Forrester analyst Andrew Bartels writes in a report (Techmeme):

The Street has become obsessed with the question of what Dell (DELL) might have on its shopping list.

There was the UBS proposed shopping list. Before thatm, there was the Avian Securities shopping list. And now, the Bernstein list.