Bulls and Bears Size up Mr. Jobs and Tuesday’s Event

September 9th, 2008 at 3:00 PM - News by John Martellaro

There are mixed reactions to Tuesdayis "Letis Rock" event by investment analysts. While the rumor mill had already identified most of the product news, and the event wasnit considered electric, most analysts looked past that on Wednesday morning to size up Appleis holiday prospects as good, according to Barronis. However, there were a few naysayers.

Several of the analysts described Mr. Jobs as energetic and "underweight but vigorous."

The majority of the analysts who weighed on Wednesday morning remained buyers. For example, Charlie Wolf with Needham & Co. said, "We would rate the event a material positive because it did address the issue of Steve Jobsi health and it did deliver a crucial software update for the iPhone insuring that sales of the device would not be impacted by the sporadic reports of its deficiencies."

In an interview with CNBCis Jim Goldman after the event, Mr. Jobs mentioned that the iPhone 2.1 Update, due Friday, will have a significant number of fixes. Some analysts saw that as critical, and some dismissed it. [Mr. Goldmanis interview also appeared to put the issue of Mr. Jobsi health, finally, to rest.]

However, amongst the analysts, there were some skeptics: Samuel Wilson (JMP Securities), Tavis McCourt (Morgan Keegan) and Tom Smith (Standard & Pooris). Mr. Wilson disagreed with, for example Shaw Wu, and believed that the world macroeconomic situation will make it difficult for Apple to obtain high growth rates.