Two Takes On Research In Motion. Who's Right?

Forbes.com looks at two differing analyst opinions on Research In Motion leading into their earnings report on Thursday. While "UBS analyst Maynard Um raised the price target on the BlackBerry-maker to $110 from $97. Piper Jaffray analyst T. Michael Walkley wasn't as confident about the quarter, and maintained a target price of $82 while lowering his fiscal 2007 earnings-per-share estimate."

UBS's Um wrote in a recent note that "Based on our analysis, we believe we are at the onset of growth across the key market segments. We believe RIM continues to enjoy a sizeable time advantage over its competitors, particularly in the high-end enterprise segment."

Um expected a "ramping of product and service subscriber growth in the coming quarters because of pent-up demand as customers waited to buy BlackBerry devices pending the resolution of the NTP patent litigation." Um added, "we believe RIM's hiring strategy clearly reflects a company that is still building for large growth not only from a sales and marketing perspective, but also for internal and customer support capacity."

Piper Jaffray's Walkley lhad a different take. He said, "We believe with additional launches of the 8700 and the potential pent-up demand for Blackberry solutions will lead to stronger trends for RIM, but we believe this recovery may not happen as quickly as our previous May quarter estimates."