Opinion ID: 653198
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: IBM's March 5, 1990 Endorsement

Text: 31 It was reasonable for the defendants to believe that IBM's announcement that Adobe's PostScript would be standard in all IBM systems would cause Adobe's product to be increasingly viewed as the industry standard. Given this circumstance, it was not unrealistic to believe that fiscal 1990 earnings would increase as Adobe's product was adopted by more OEMs. The reasonableness of this belief was supported by an analyst's report from Shearson Lehman Hutton and the market's response to IBM's announcement--the six-point surge in the stock price the following day, at the outset of the class period. 32 The plaintiff argues that the failure to quantify expressly the effect of IBM's announcement on revenues rendered the use of the IBM endorsement in a specific earnings projection unreasonable, or at least requires a trial to resolve the question. We reject this argument. There is no authority requiring such quantification. Indeed, Apple Computer holds that the basis for the prediction need not be certain, but only realistic. Apple Computer, 886 F.2d at 1117. 33