iPhone's $200 Million Jackpot

Apple's (AAPL Quote) iDay will put a $200 million revenue ka-ching on the end of this quarter.

The temps are trained, crowd control measures are in place and the stage is all set for Friday's debut of the huge iPhone. If Apple can pull it all off, this most orchestrated of product introductions should manage to move nearly 400,000 phones out the door on the first day.

Follow this math: There are 162 Apple stores and 1,800 AT&T (T Quote) shops -- so exactly 1,962 sales outlets will be pushing the iPhone.

With the final changes to the iPhone made last week -- including an improved battery and glass instead of plastic screens -- it's fair to assume the phone has just recently been put into full production. This seems to rule out the notion that there are warehouses stuffed to the ceiling with pallets of iPhones.

This would also support the speculation that a limited iPhone inventory needs to be allocated. The current rumor is that each store is being rationed somewhere between 100 to 250 phones.

So here's the plan: After closing the stores at 4:30 Friday afternoon, the doors will open again at 6 p.m. to an iPhone wonderland. The special extended-hour sales session will end at 10 p.m. local time.

All the campers, long-line sitters and the rest of the willfully determined soon-to-be iPhone owners will likely clean out the shelves in the allotted time. That, of course, assumes that each sale takes 10 minutes or less, and that each store has at least eight clerks ringing the register.