“We have succeeded to sale more phones than RIM and it is, indeed, one of the best quarters in Apple’s history.” A happy Steve Jobs crowed announced.

The company reported $1.14 billion 3Q profit on almost $8 billion sales, which shows an income of $1.26 per diluted share of stock.

Mac computers came forward as a big seller with 21% more units’ sale than the same period during last year. Similarly, iPod saw 8% increase in sale compared to the same period of last year.

According to Job, “It is yet not known how this economic slow down will affect Apple, but we now we have the most powerful product line in the history of the company, best employees as well as the best customers.” Currently the company has $25 billion of cash in the bank without any debt.

The numbers are quite different from Yahoo that also announced financial results today. The company is considering shedding 10% of its workforce globally to save $400 million by the end of this year.

Computers are a high priced commodity in Cuba. A tower style QTECH PC and monitor costs around $780 to $800. In a country where average daily wages fall below $20 (10 pounds) a month, computer becomes a thing that can be bought by only a few people. Only some Cubans can afford to buy them if they have some relatives abroad sending money.

They day has become a remarkable one in Cuban history. The tiny Havana electric shop was seeing so many crowds in front of its windows for the first time.

The only model available at present is the gray and black QTECHs, complete with DVD players, bulky CRT monitors and standard-issue black mice and keyboards.

These PCs have Intel Celeron processors with 80 gigabytes of memory and 512 RAM. They are equipped with Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system.

Both the specifications might come under the definition of violation of law, from US point of view, as US has forced embargo on Cuba. But luckily enough for Cubans, America can not do a thing as both the countries are having no diplomatic relations.

The clerks told that the computers were assembled by Cuban companies using parts imported from China, which is another set back for American government. In America, buyers spend less money and get a better equipped PC, having twice time more memory, an 80 GB SATA hard drive and a22 inch LCD flat-screen monitor.

Even after the ban lifting on computers, most Cubans are banned from accessing the Internet at home. Only a few state trusted officials and journalists are given this privilege. The government states that it is unable to connect to the giant undersea fiber-optic cables because of the US trade embargo. All online connections today are via satellite which has limited bandwidth and is expensive to use.

President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez is an ally of Cuba and a harsh critic of US and its policies, is laying a new cable under the Caribbean. It is to be seen after the completion of the project, whether the Cubans will have the opportunity to access internet at home or not then.

Most of the people still think that many of the computers will not have the opportunity to get connected to the net. People though enjoying the ban lifting, are still waiting for more.

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