“The delayed release of a final product did not alarm
analysts, who pointed out that operating system upgrades — most
notoriously those for Microsoft’s dominant Windows family — are
typically late.“
“I can’t get terribly upset about it,” said J.P. Morgan analyst
Daniel Kunstler. “It was sort of an underhanded way of buying
themselves a little bit of time, saying `We’re not going to
shrink-wrap it but we’ll just call it a public beta so we can say
we had it out.’ But they say they’ll have it pre-loaded in January.
That’s when the excuses run out.”
“Also, Cupertino-based Apple has been delivering on things
investors care about. In the past four quarters, Apple’s growth
rate in unit sales and revenue has beaten industry leaders Dell,
Compaq and Gateway. Apple’s earnings growth — at 56 percent — has
been more than twice that of its nearest competitor, Dell.”