Rough Start of Day for Mobile

1. Apple (AAPL) shares tumble on announcement that Steve Jobs will take a medical leave of absence through June '09. The company has done an unbelievably poor job of a managing the media during this crisis, fostering wild speculation about the real state of Jobs' health and concern about the future of a company that has never done particularly well without Jobs at the helm.


2. Motorola (MOT) announced it would layoff an additional 4,000 employees after revealing that handset sales fell over 50% from Q4 2007. This company needs to create a smartphone that consumers want - quickly!


3. Long suffering Nortel Networks (NT) filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection. The mobile network infrastructure company is trying to restructure its debt to preserve its $24 billion cash reserve.