There’s been a lot of negative stuff about Apple and the iPhone, lately, including here at InfoWorld. Some of the rotten tomatoes tossed at the company and its newest gadget were well aimed. After all, it’s not very cool to keep your users from loading and enjoying third-party apps by turning the device into a brick in the name of security. But to quote Tom Malloy (Marlon Brando) in On the Waterfront, “I say, so There’s been a lot of negative stuff about Apple and the iPhone, lately, including here at InfoWorld. Some of the rotten tomatoes tossed at the company and its newest gadget were well aimed. After all, it’s not very cool to keep your users from loading and enjoying third-party apps by turning the device into a brick in the name of security. But to quote Tom Malloy (Marlon Brando) in On the Waterfront, “I say, so what?” At least as far as Wall Street is concerned. Shares of Apple outpaced the market last week, gaining nearly 4%, while the Dow was flat and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained about 2%. When trading closed for the week, Apple was selling for $153.47, within spitting distance of its 52-week high. One of the drivers was a bullish report by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. According to Munster, his checks show that demand for the iPhone at AT&T stores is up 70% to 100% following the price cut. Previously the firm had expected demand to stabilize at about 50%. I don’t know if that says that iPhone critics are wrong or that buyers don’t care. But for now, it doesn’t matter. The iPhone is selling and that makes investors happy. Another interesting tidbit last week was contained in Tibco’s quarterly earnings report. The company missed analysts’ projections in the third quarter by 3 cents a share. The miss was expected since the company issued earnings warnings earlier in the month. But the interesting bit here is the news that the mortgage meltdown has started to hurt sales of business software to the financial services industry. According to Paul Kedrosky, executive director of the William J. von Liebig Center in San Diego and a frequent contributor to numerous sites, Tibco has more at stake in the financial services sector that any other major provider. Tibco’s exposure, that is percentage of revenue, is 30%, Informatica’s 23% and BEA Systems derives 21% of its sales from the sector. BEA has had a good run on Wall Street lately, but chalk that up to ever-present rumors that the company will be sold. (A long-shot, as I wrote recently.) BMC Software, CA, Citrix Systems and Red Hat all have an exposure of about 20%. How much these companies will be hurt is unclear, but, as Kedrosky said, they bear watching. (Disclosure: I own a small number of Apple shares.) I welcome your comments, tips and ideas; write me at bill.snyder@sbcglobal.net Technology Industry