"Competition among business divisions" over which one had the "youngest" receivables "has stimulated the posting of memo entries in advance of actuals, " Folk, the revenue operations chief, wrote in a 1997 e-mail quoted in a lawsuit later filed by an MCI partner.

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There are many reasons but the biggest two are the 36% gross margin guidance for the December quarter (after actuals of 40% in the September quarter and 47.4% in the March quarter) and multiple cuts by Street analysts of iPhone manufacturing plans based on channel checks (which may or not be accurate but there are enough of them to be a concern).

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