This Morning: Apple Product Rumination Friday, QLIK Soars, SPWR REITS?

Here are some things going on this morning in your world of tech:

If it’s Friday, which it is, it must be time to ruminate upon Apple’s product prospects.

Mark your calendar for sometime around March, says Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster, because that’s likely to be a time when Apple (AAPL) introduces � something. Munster notes it’s consistent with Apple’s history to have an introduction of a product in the March to April time frame. It could be an iPad with a different casing, writes Munster.

“All in, if Apple does have a Spring event this year, it may not result in significant new products, but we believe the pipeline for the rest of the year, including a cheaper phone and a television will excite investors about Apple’s ability to innovate.”

In other Apple views, Rob Cihra with with Evercore Partners this morning reiterates an Overweight rating and a $675 price target, writing that for Apple’s growth to sustain itself, it has to become more mainstream, and it will: “As large numbers become a governor, we see Apple forced to gradually scale down into more of the mainstream (e.g., iPad mini, low-cost iPhone).”

“Yet while such transition diverges from Apple�s traditional M.O., we see it sustaining double-digit growth rates and Apple�s vertically-integrated hardware+software+services model providing it almost unique latitude to manage the price/GM dilution.”

And in still other Apple views, Steve Milunovich of UBS warns against “incrementalism” by Apple in the form of, say, cheaper iPhones. Rather, the company needs to do what it has done traditionally, create new product categories: “Wearable computing seems a natural evolution for Apple with numerous recent media reports discussing a potential iWatch.”

Apple shares are up 87 cents at $467.46.

Shares of Qlik Technologies (QLIK) are up $4.38, or 19%, at $27.16 after the company last night reported Q4 revenue and profit per share that was higher than analysts were expecting, and projected this year’s results ahead of expectations as well. The stock got two upgrades to the equivalent of Buy, from RBC Capital and Susquehanna.

Skeptics remain, however. Citigroup’s Walter Pritchard, reiterating a Neutral rating “Historically the company’s visibility has been limited beyond a quarter, thus we’d like to see confirmation Q4 is a trend.”

Shares of SunPower (SPWR) continue a strong run this week, up 11 cents, or 1%, at $12.24, as Lazard Capital’s Sanjay Shrestha raised his rating on the shares to $15 from $11 given that he has heard from a “leading expert on project financing” for solar installations who has suggested that increasingly they could be securitized or REIT-like.

“Solar securitizations should benefit both small and medium-scale projects from companies such as MEMC and SunPower, and large-scale utility projects (First Solar) could more easily qualify for a REIT structure, a view we had not heard before.”