Who gained from the $800 MacBook rumour?

Don't you find it interesting that at a time when Apple's stock price was going into the toilet (like everyone else's), a rumour emerged about low-priced MacBooks? A rumour which analysts picked up on, and which thus protected Apple's share price from falling any further at a vulnerable time.

And now it seems that rumour was not necessarily true, but as the whole market has gone up it doesn't matter half as much.

So here's the question: Who would benefit from a rumour like that being spread at that particular time? Someone started that rumour, after all...