By Katie Marsal

Published: 07:00 PM EST (04:00 PM PST)

Leopard's unusually strong sales on its first weekend show that the Mac user base is easily on the rise, according to estimates by Piper Jaffray. Also, Google may be leaping into the mobile OS space within days.

Analyst: Leopard proves Mac base growing

Piper Jaffray senior analyst Gene Munster issued a research note to investors on Tuesday which noted that Apple's sale of two million copies of Mac OS X Leopard during its first weekend on sale was a dramatic improvement that showed the new release was not simply profiting from existing users but triggering sales to first-time customers.

By comparison, Mac OS X Tiger took 39 days to reach the same sales mark -- a 13-fold increase despite a Mac OS X user base that had only doubled in the space of two and a half years. This could lead to about 3.5 million copies of Leopard sold before the end of the year and $92 million more income than expected during the quarter. But it also proved Apple's greater foothold on customers' minds in recent months, Munster said.

"From a high level, these numbers show that the Mac user base is growing," he said. "It also shows that it is an unusually active use base, with 9 percent of the 23 million users upgrading in just the first four days. Compared to the Windows user base, these numbers highlight the Mac's strong brand loyalty, and Apple's ability to sell more frequent operating system upgrades to a larger percentage of its user base."

WSJ claims Google mobile OS within two weeks

Adding to the string of rumors surrounding Google's mobile efforts, the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday hinted that Google was about to reveal its own platform for cellphones and other mobile devices, possibly announcing details within the next two weeks.

Citing "people familiar with the matter," the paper claimed that Google was writing an open-source platform that would break the stranglehold of carriers over software on their devices by making development inexpensive and flexible. Programmers could tap into a phone's GPS unit for map-related services, the Journal mentioned as an example. Gmail, YouTube, and other common Google services would be tailored for the platform.

Existing handset makers LG and HTC were likely candidates to produce phones based on the code, according to the report. In return, cellular carriers such as France's Orange, T-Mobile's US division, and 3 UK were allegedly destined to receive these new models.

Google refrained from commenting on the claims, which would set a release for actual devices sometime in mid-2008.

Asustek hints at larger Intel CPU shortage

Intel's processor manufacturing output is falling short of demand, according to a statement made by Asustek chief Jerry Shen at a conference on Tuesday.

The Taiwan PC builder's president explained that the supply of Intel's mobile processors "isn't meeting demand" for the holiday quarter, compounding previous issues with obtaining hard drives and LCDs. A strong relationship between Asustek and Intel ensured a steady supply but could leave smaller companies vulnerable, Shen said.

It was unclear as to whether the shortage would affect Apple. While Asustek has purportedly lost its MacBook contract to Quanta and so would not affect Apple specifically, a general shortage would hurt the latter firm by limiting its potential shipments. All of the Mac maker's systems save for the Mac Pro currently rely on mobile Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Extreme processors.

Xcode Developer Tools update

Apple quietly posted its Xcode 2.5 Developer Tools update for registered members of its Apple Developer website on Tuesday night.

The upgrade primarily addresses security issues in gdb and WebObjects. A buffer overflow in gdb's handling of TekHex content could let a malicious file quit a program or run arbitrary code, Apple said. In turn, the demo version of OpenBase included with Xcode's WebObjects package was disabled to prevent local users from gaining potentially dangerous OS privileges.

Developers using both Mac OS X Tiger and Leopard were equally affected, the company added.