Posted on 06/29/2008 8:35:45 PM PDT by Swordmaker
In an interview with The Financial Times yesterday, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg had this to say when asked about the competition posed by Apple’s iPhone:
“It’s very cool. And Steve Jobs eventually will get old… I like our chances.”
That’s got to be one of the most indelicate utterances by one CEO regarding another.
Mr. Seidenberg is about a decade older than Mr. Jobs, so he can’t possibly be referring to his age with the most unfortunate “Steve Jobs eventually will get old” phrase. He must be referring to Mr. Job’s frail appearance at the Apple WWDC in June.
Apple said Mr. Jobs was suffering from a “common bug” but various pundits and AAPL shorters claimed it was due to his recent brush with pancreatic cancer. Nobody outside of his immediate circle really knows what may or may not be medically worrisome with Mr. Jobs, but why would a competitor’s CEO feel the need to raise it so brazenly?
This chart covering the period from Mr. Jobs’ cancer diagnosis in October 2003 to the present might give a clue (red: Apple, blue: Verizon):
What’s peculiar is that Apple doesn’t directly compete with Verizon: the former is the maker of the iPhone, the latter is a carrier. The competitor Verizon should actually be worried about is AT&T, Apple’s iPhone carrier partner in the U.S.
What should really concern Verizon’s board, however, is why 18 months after the announcement of the iPhone, the Verizon camp hasn’t been able to come up with any remotely credible “iPhone-killer”? They should ask their CEO what other concrete plans he might have to compete with the iPhone other than hoping that Apple’s CEO drops out of the picture due to “old age.” How does the $20.3 million-a-year CEO of a $100 billion company like Verizon display so openly its inability to compete on innovation by placing its “chances” on the demise of another CEO?
Can you imagine another CEO, even such an old adversary like Bill Gates (or even Steve Ballmer, not lacking tackiness otherwise), would ever make such an ill-wishing statement? For shame. The least Mr. Seidenberg can do is to apologize to Mr. Jobs pronto.
It really depends on where you are. I have family with Verison and when they come to visit, there service is absolutely horrible. In fact, even where they live (just outside of Houston, TX), their service is hit-or-miss. I have been to their home and my AT&T service has been rock solid the whole time with no drops at all. Cell phone service is best shopped based on who is best in the particular area you will be using it the most. Just here in this state, the two primary carriers (those with the best coverage) have strong parts and weak parts - with one being stronger where the other is weaker. The only reason my step-father has insisted on staying with Verison was that they were the last provider to still have company stores where you could walk in and get your phone repaired or replaced without having to be mailed a new phone. But Verison announced a short while back that that was ending... With number portability, I suspect they will be leaving Verison.
I'm sure the marketing will change in time, it always does. But these products themselves are not empty hype. There is a reason why everyone tries to copy what Apple does -- Apple innovates.
I just hope that whoever takes over is as obsessive-compulsive as Jobs.
Why are the major phone manufacturers making an iPhone copy these days? Why did a Nokia rep blatantly say Nokia plans to copy the iPhone?
Verizon was still thinking old-school, and they paid for it. Here were the major terms:
Evidence that competitors are all over them.
Um, no.
'Unprecedented Pent-Up Demand' For Apple iPhone 3G, RBC Says"
Survey says: 56% of smart phone shoppers will buy Apple's iPhone 3G in the next 90 days.
Which means it is not "boutique niche." It has functionality that everyone raced to copy, and now a year later the iPhone finally has some serious competition. It's all good for the users, because Apple forced everyone else to get off their collective behinds and start making better smart phones. It also means Apple can't afford to stand still in iPhone development -- the rest of the industry needs something else to copy in order to advance. :)
Not according to the press:
"It's like a scene from a bad horror movie. Samsung and Research in Motion are among the companies trundling down the steps into the basement. And down there, waiting for them, is Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs and his chainsaw collection. Dudes, don't go down there."Apple's easy-to-use, media-friendly gizmo has cut deeply into the smart phone market. Six months after putting out the iPhone last year, Apple had seized 26.7% of the U.S. market in the final quarter of 2007. The assault was put on pause—with Apple dipping to just 19.2% of the market during the first quarter—as Apple reloaded with a faster iPhone. After it goes on sale July 11, however, it's going to be a long, hard year for Apple's rivals." — Forbes Magazine, Brian Caulfield, Attack of the iPhone Killers, 06/16/2008. Most of the punditry have compared the competitions' iPhone killers and found them wanting.
Were you RIF'ed or volunteered to take a package?
Verizon has much more than the former GTE and Bell Atlantic Companies.
NYNEX, MCI, UUNet, Cybertrust and soon to be Alltel are just some of a host of companies ultimately merged into Verizon.
If Verizon wants to compete they should give customers the PALM CENTRO for free with a 2 year contract. AND, give discounts for broad band/web/e-mail connections when you have a family plan.
The analyst raised his price target on Apple to $220 from $200, while maintaining an "outperform" call on the stock.
As to exactly when the iPhone will be available in Canada, Mr. Abramsky estimates it will arrive in the third quarter of this year. At 10% the size of the U.S. market, more than 300,000 iPhones could be sold in Canada later when they become available.
Why would anyone listen to some Canadian sock-puppet stock trader shill for Apple?
Neither. I was working for Government Systems Corp., the government contracting portion of GTE. Govt. Systems was purchased by General Dynamics, for about a billion dollars. On a curious side note, at the time of purchase, Govt. Systems actually had more employees than GD did. At the time, everyone thought that GTE sold Govt. Systems to finance the merger.
When GTE and Bell Atlantic merged to form Verizon, there were only the two in the new company. Any others came later.
Why do so few people make the difference between Verizon Communications and Verizon Wireless? They are two different companies, the same way AT&T and AT&T Mobility are? No?
No they didn't. And you're hardly qualified to comment on such matters anyway since you've previously admitted you don't have a cell phone of any kind LOL. For the record I have an iPhone, a Blackberry, and a Treo, there's still many things I can do on my other phones I can't do on my iPhone, starting with incredibly simple things like cut copy and paste, or picture messaging. It's still a great device, my personal favorite despite its shortcomings, but trying to claim all smart phones sucked before iPhone is ridiculous, especially from someone who doesn't even have one.
Interesting article about who may ultimately succeed Jobs:
http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/06/24/after-steve-jobs-handicapping-apples-back-bench/
Apple sells one million iPhones in 74 days
Mac Daily News | Monday, September 10, 2007 - 08:33 AM EDT
Posted on 09/10/2007 5:57:22 PM PDT by Swordmaker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1894310/posts
Microsoft games exec hints at iPhone rival
Macworld via Yahoo! | 09/04/2007 | By Elizabeth Montalbano
Posted on 09/04/2007 3:47:43 PM PDT by Swordmaker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1891133/posts
The Computer Of The Future - Apple’s iPhone
Forbes Magazine | 07.04.07, 6:00 AM ET | Rachel Rosmarin
Posted on 07/04/2007 10:25:42 PM PDT by Swordmaker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1861074/posts
Not anymore. I was an early adopter of cell phones but stopped using them regularly a while after I bought a smart phone a few years back. That was a total POS, pretty much top of the line of what was available then. Since then I didn't see anything that even made me want to get a smart phone again until the iPhone. Of course now I've gotten so used to not having a cell phone on me that I can't really justify getting one. But I do have extensive experience with most of the iPhone interface since I have an iPod Touch.
Lots of good ones there. I remember Ive being floated around, and I discounted him for the same reasons. The only way you could get him to take the CEO job would be to tell him the new CEO wants to turn Apple into another Dell and forget design. Ive can only be happy with complete freedom and power to design good stuff, and Apple under Jobs is probably the only place he can get that.
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