Unless you are one of those precious (and lucky) few who might be considered in the class of the filthy rich, you know it’s been a difficult Fall. Money is tight, sales are light, and it’s hard to know whether it’s even worth spending large amounts of money for the holiday season.

Maybe it’s better just to fill your Christmas stocking with — well — stockings!

Indeed, Apple hasn’t fared too well as far as Wall Street is concerned, as its stock remains at the lowest levels in over a year. Now perhaps a lot of this discontent reflects the general flavor of the stock market these days. And, no, I won’t speculate on whether the new president is a positive or negative influence. I don’t think the so-called political pundits that pollute 24-hour cable TV here in the states really know the score either.

But when you look at preliminary reports of Apple’s sales, you have reason to feel surprisingly optimistic. According to a story in AppleInsider, which carries a lot more than just plain rumors these days, Mac retail sales in this country were up 28% in October, compared to last year according to recent retail surveys.

Sure, some of those surprising statistics may be due to the pent-up demand for the new Apple note-books introduced last month. No doubt sales declined ahead of their release in anticipation of a major product refresh, and then grew rapidly because of pent-up demand. So it’s quite possible things will settle down to a less-favorable rate this month and the next.

It also appears that the iPhone is selling at a pace similar to that in the previous quarter, even without another new model rush. Now remember that smartphones aren’t necessarily purchased on a seasonal basis. Quite often, it’s a matter of when the contract with the present carrier expires, or, if you’re using the same carrier that supports the iPhone in your country, when you actually become eligible to get one at the standard discount price.

That and the news that even the previous best-selling phone in the U.S., the Motorola RAZR, couldn’t beat the iPhone is exceedingly encouraging, if not surprising. Remember that the RAZR nowadays is frequently given away in exchange for a two-year contract, or sold at a token price. I paid $25 for mine, by the way, at AT&T in the contract that also included my first iPhone.

As far as the iPod is concerned, well they’re talking about a slight drop in sales compared to over 22 million units sold last year. Now if that really happens, perhaps Apple will fudge things a bit and remind us that the iPhone is often bought instead of an iPod.

Whether true or not, the analysts have been saying that iPod sales are due to drop off any time now. It is inevitable, since the market for digital media players is cooling off. That may be true, but if you’re looking for a relatively cheap gift, certainly an iPod shuffle or nano would be just the ticket. So perhaps the negative expectations are due to be disproved by Apple just one more time.

Moreover, there were reports just last month from a couple of analysts talking of major cutbacks in iPhone production. The claims were never verified, although they were supposedly based on contacts with some of Apple’s suppliers.

Since I tend to think that Apple has contracts with these companies that bind them to secrecy, I don’t think they’d risk those deals in order to feed the wolves in the pundit community. So I rather doubt the reports have any basis in fact, though logic would seem to dictate that Apple must be hurt seriously by the state of the economy.

You see, Apple is still regarded as a company that builds premium-priced products. Some writers, no doubt influenced by some ill-informed executives from Microsoft, continue to claim that there is an “Apple Tax” that you pay for the privilege of owning a Mac, an iPhone, or an iPod.

The facts, of course, are often otherwise. iPods can be had for as little as $49. The $199 you pay for the 8GB iPhone is competitive with the BlackBerry, its major competitor. As far as Macs are concerned, well I suppose that’s debatable.

Indeed, if you want the very cheap PC that is ubiquitous at a Wal-Mart, or a discount club outlet, such as Sam’s Club, none of those boxes bear Apple labels. That makes perfect sense, since Apple wants decent profits from everything it does, and Steve Jobs has often said that they won’t build cheap junk and put a Mac label on it.

My position has long been that a Mac is priced real close to an identically-equipped PC. However, some of the detractors of that theory list personal preferences in their argument, that maybe they don’t need some of the features on the Mac, and would like to eliminate them. They can’t, but you can on the PC, and hence the latter must be cheaper.

Regardless of where this argument goes, it’s nevertheless obvious that, despite the obstacles, Apple is clearly doing surprisingly well this holiday season.

One of the accepted factors about the PC is that it is infinitely customizable. While this may be a boon for business, it’s a major pain for MIcrosoft, since they have to make sure that Windows works properly despite the hardware configuration. Indeed, that they succeed even partly might be a miracle, but it is one key reason why it takes so long to upgrade their operating system.

This doesn’t even take into account the compromises that have to be made. According to published reports of emails exchanged among Microsoft executives before the release of Windows Vista, it appears they caved to Intel and loosened system requirements for XP’s successor. Otherwise, millions of PC note-books equipped with Intel’s i915 integrated graphics chip wouldn’t be considered “Vista Capable.”

Without going into the reasons, it’s clear that such forced decisions may have caused lots of troubles for people who bought PCs equipped with Vista that performed poorly. This doesn’t happen in the Mac universe because Apple makes the entire widget and they are quite capable of deciding which systems support a new operating system release and which are questionable, and thus abandoned.

Not that this stops some power users from using the old hardware anyway, but you still know you’re taking chances and may not get the best user experience.

If a company wants to order Macs, they choose from the same lineup that’s available to consumers. Yes, there is an Apple Store for Business, but the prices don’t change, even though the advertising pitch and some of the bundles may differ.

Apple’s argument is that they are offering fully equipped personal computers that are priced comparably to fully equipped Windows PCs. Macs are far less susceptible to malware, and are perfectly capable of running Windows out of the box courtesy of Boot Camp. With Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion, dozens of operating systems can be run in virtual machines simultaneously with Mac OS X.

Indeed, this multiple system environment is a huge selling point, because it means that a company can continue to use its legacy Windows applications, and gradually migrate to Mac versions, assuming they’re available.

But that doesn’t mean Apple doesn’t adapt. One if the biggest visible changes to the MacBook line was to change it into a junior partner to the MacBook Pro, with the same basic form factor. By ditching plastics and adopting aluminum, the major model refresh delivered an elegant note-book that will appeal to lots of businesses who aren’t interested in the larger screens or additional connection options of the Pro lineup.

Indeed, if you compare a standard midrange business note-book, the kind a company routinely hands out to their road warriors, you’ll find that they are priced in the same legue as the MacBook. They wouldn’t seriously consider the $799 note-book computer that you find on display at your neighborhood Wal-Mart. They are not serious business computers.

Apple also made the iPhone business friendly beginning with the 2.0 software update. There’s full support for Microsoft Exchange, for example, and improved security. That, and the lower initial purchase price, surely helps encourage companies to consider the iPhone in place of the BlackBerry, which is precisely what happened last quarter.

For Snow Leopard, Exchange support will be embedded into the system itself, so Macs will gain the same capability. Indeed, maybe Microsoft won’t sell so many copies of Office to users who require Exchange, but the price businesses pay for exchange licensing will yield far more profits in the end.

On the application front, in recent weeks I’ve heard more and more radio ads about software that now embraces the Mac. In fact, that’s a big deal to them, and it clearly means that developers have come to realize that creating a Mac OS version of many of their products is a keystone for future growth. The fact that Mac sales are growing faster than PCs, even in this questionable economic environment, doesn’t hurt.

Apple also has its own business applications that are targeted to content creators. I can’t begin to count how many film and TV projects use Final Cut Studio in the post-production process. For audio, Apple cut the price of Logic Studio to $499 for a huge 14-pound box with loads and loads of extras. So musicians and studio owners who want to create professional caliber projects have a selection of extremely affordable yet extremely powerful tools.

You’ll also find iWork listed in Apple’s business arsenal. Although the three applications that make up the suite may not be as feature-laden as Microsoft Office, they are probably sufficient for 90% of the people who currently choose Word, Excel or PowerPoint. Indeed, none of those endlessly tedious PowerPoint presentations that are ubiquitous in the business world come close to Keynote. Don’t believe me? Just watch the QuickTime video playback of any Steve Jobs presentation in recent years, and you’ll see just how slick Keynote can be.

All these ingredients do make a credible case for businesses to adopt Macs. It may not always be easy, and adopting a new operating system and perhaps buying loads of new software licenses may not be a cheap proposition. But where productivity is accurately measured, Macs have traditionally come out ahead — way ahead.

And now it appears that the enterprise is slowly getting the message.

It’s not unusual to think that there’s never been a Mac OS feature that Microsoft didn’t try to imitate. Of course, this is not to say that Apple is above cribbing a few features from others when it’s appropriate.

Take the the Mac’s Help menu or, for that matter, the application switching technique, both of which didn’t originate with Apple. But that’s beside the point. You see, the next great operating system war will be between Mac OS 10.6, known as Snow Leopard and Windows 7. The former is due to arrive next summer, the latter by 2010.

May the best product win.

For Apple, Snow Leopard will supposedly be a step back, the better to fix the plumbing and clean up the dead wood. Although system requirements haven’t been officially announced, it has been reported unofficially that it’s Intel only, which seems to make sense since the planned improvements would seem to impact the x86 processor architecture to a far greater extent.

It certainly is a good idea to offload processor tasks to the graphics chips, which is one key reason why the new MacBooks are using NVIDIA parts rather than the pathetic integrated graphics from Intel. Since all recent Macs other than the original entry-level Intel-based Mac mini use processors with two or four cores, making the operating system more aware of such things is a huge plus.

Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.

In a recent article published by Fortune, they profiled Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, Tim Cook. Now he’s not a household name by any means, certainly in comparison to Steve Jobs, but he’s also considered a genius when it comes to making the company run smoothly and efficiently.

Take Apple’s superbly tight control on inventories. When the company was in the doldrums in the mid-1990s and hemorrhaging millions of dollars of cash, they had nary a clue about how many units to produce of a given model, or even if it should be build in the first place. Thus, they were confronted with untold numbers of unsold stock catching dust in warehouses around the world.

So if he changed nothing else, Cook’s ability to design and maintain a system where Apple can, as much as possible, build enough units of a particular model to satisfy demand and no more, would probably be sufficient to justify his salary. Sure, Apple has run short during initial production ramps of such products as the iPhone, which were in high demand. But that’s a good position to be in, and Apple tends to be conservative about such matters.

When Steve Jobs took a hiatus from Apple several years ago to recover from surgery for pancreatic cancer, Cook was, in effect, the interim CEO for two months or so, and Apple didn’t go bust. In fact, it appeared as if hardly anything changed.

Certainly, if you’ve listened to the QuickTime audio streams of Apple’s quarterly meetings with analysts, Cook’s calm, reassuring tones are well in evidence. He may not have the creative vision of a Steve Jobs, or the public persona of a rock star, but he can keep the company running properly, which is perhaps as important or more so. Indeed, perhaps the genius of Steve Jobs is that he has surrounded himself with a team of supremely talented executives to carry out his wishes. Without them, Apple would have never recovered from its perennially beleaguered status and become the huge success it is today.

So if Jobs were to become seriously ill, injured, or simply decided to give up the rat race, Apple could surely persevere, although the stock price would surely take a huge hit for a couple of quarters until Wall Street got the hint.

In a sense, Apple is the victim of its own success. So much faith in the company is invested in Steve Jobs that he could probably sneeze too loudly and severely impact the company’s stock price.

Now it is unfortunate that Apple’s board of directors hasn’t revealed any actual succession plans, although it claims to have one. That may comply with an ongoing corporate strategy of intense secrecy, but it doesn’t reassure the financial community.

At the same time, it is clear that Jobs doesn’t intend to convey the illusion that he is a one-man band. Quite often during his keynotes and other public presentations, he takes the time to thank Apple’s overworked employees for their great work in building the products he’s talking about. In recent years, his lieutenants have played greater roles in those sessions. You wonder if he isn’t gauging audience reaction to see who might be the best candidate for the CEO position.

In addition to Cook, some suggest that marketing VP Phil Schiller would be a suitable replacement for Jobs. Yes, he often assumes the role of second banana or comedy relief during a keynote, but he’s also savvy executive who has played a huge role in selling Apple’s breakthrough products.

Another potential candidate is Ron Johnson, the charismatic retail genius whom Apple recruited from Target to create their trendsetting chain of retail stores. I met Johnson at a couple of those store openings, and he impressed me as having a far friendlier disposition than the mercurial Jobs. I have no idea how he behaves behind the scenes, but his skills are undeniable. The critics said Apple would never succeed with its own company stores. How wrong they were.

There are other potential candidates, including design guru Jonathan Ive. Indeed, it’s quite clear Apple wouldn’t have to go outside the company to recruit a new CEO. 

In the end, of course, nobody wants Steve Jobs to leave. But his future is not something anyone can readily predict, not do you expect him to reveal any details until it becomes absolutely necessary. However, that recent nasty online rumor that he had suffered a major heart attack — a fake story that caused Apple to shed $10 billion in its market value in the space of a few minutes — should be evidence enough that the company needs to be more forthcoming about its future.

It’s not as if they can hire a mad scientist to clone Steve Jobs in the event the original is no longer capable of functioning at Apple. In the meantime, maybe the presence of more and more Apple executives at keynotes and other public sessions is indeed a way to audition new CEO talent, so if the worst were to occur, they’d be ready to take over.