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.
Anyway, welcome back. I take it you ran off to lick your wounds and are all healed up and ready for more.
Bell Atlantic had already merged with NYNEX.
I'm glad you left GTE in a graceful way. I feel sure GTE Govt. Sys. was a good fit w/ GD.
Macs are for girls, lefties and Rush
/s
but they are innovative
Why do so few people make the difference between the other two entities and Verizon Business? LOL
It's a tripartite conglomerate even so far as each is federally regulated(or not) to different degrees.
ROFL! You really showed me again here too LOL.
Hey I just added a new tagline, it’ll be fun watching your head explode every time you see it.
Nope, head's still there. If you'd actually been reading anything you'd know I have no problem with individuals being religious. I hope your beliefs bring you happiness, and maybe lead you to correct your lying and deceptive ways.
Nothing conflicted here, you’re the anti-Republican atheist on a conservative board who spends most of his time on Apple computer threads even though you’ve let it slip you’d quote “prefer” if their products were made by Sony, and endlessly defended Russian hackers who hacked Apple’s O/S to run on cheap PC’s. Those issues run awfully deep obviously LOL.
Anti-Republicrat. Learn to read.
board who spends most of his time on Apple computer threads
I notice that since the last Apple thread that you polluted with your trolling (requiring me to make far more posts that I normally would to counter your lies and ignorance), I count only about 16 posts on Apple threads among about 239 posts, approximately 7% rounded up. I even included iPhone threads, not restricting it to "Apple computer" threads. Back to your claim:
"who spends most of his time on Apple computer threads"
7% = most? Uh, no. Yet another proven lie by you, yet another time you lied about me and my posts. Religion doesn't seem to be very effective in governing your morality.
Typical lib, always someone else's fault.
lies and ignorance
We just saw a perfect example of that from you when you tried to claim quote "all smartphones sucked before the iphone". Not only was it wrong, it was argued from complete ignorance since you don't even have a cell of any kind LOL.
So you support prayer in school now?
Remember a previous thread where the subject went from OS X making programming for matrix processors easy, to the power that such matrix processors can give (thus validating Apple's decision to make such programming easy), to the Cell as an example of a powerful matrix processor? Remember how you chastised me for going off-topic even though it was a logical progression from an important part of the article?
Then you go from a replacement for Steve Jobs straight to prayer in school. Your hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Would you like me to document the proven instances of your lies and ignorance in that thread?
Not only was it wrong, it was argued from complete ignorance since you don't even have a cell of any kind
Yeah, like I totally ignore the market because I don't own one anymore (that's anymore, I did have pre-iPhone smartphone ownership). Like I don't know a ton of people who have Blackberries and other smart phones. Most of my friends and colleagues live by them. That is why you haven't been able to point out anything incorrect about those posts, so much for ignorance. Meanwhile you demonstrated your complete ignorance on IBM/Apple and the Cell.
And since you apparently would like to dismiss your skewing my postings up with your trolling, I'll go purely time-based. All my Apple thread posts through last month, counting your trolling inflation, equal about 16% of my posts. That is still not even close to "most."
So, would you like to retract your statement that I spend most of my time on Apple threads, or would you like to leave it as a yet another proven lie of yours? Come on, an honest "I was wrong. As usual in an attack on you, I posted without even researching whether my statement was true" will do.
The chart would be improved if it included greater AT&T, aggregated back over the mergers.
BTW, to answer the question, it would be a violation of a student’s constitutional First Amendment right to prevent him from praying in school. Of course I support that right.
I realize that threads go off-topic, and won’t chastise you for doing that in itself, just the hypocrisy in you yourself going way off-topic.
I stopped you from turning the Apple thread into a commercial for IBM chips, reminding you Apple could have used those chips and were encouraged to do so but righfully dumped IBM instead, which was the proper context. This thread is another example of you swerving off course, rather than admit you don’t know jack about smart phones, as I correctly pointed out, instead you predictably started whining about how right you were in prevous threads rather than deal with the subject at hand.
That's not an answer that's the typical duck and dodge we see from you when you're afraid to admit the truth. I'm referring to school prayer, which you oppose, whether you try to weasel out of it again now or not.
A student praying is school prayer, and that I support.
Talk about going off topic!
So says the guy who just went from the iPhone (sorry, mixed up with the Steve Jobs' replacement bit) to school prayer. You continue to show your hypocrisy.
This thread is another example of you swerving off course
Track the posts. Mine were perfectly on topic or at least responding to an Apple-related post by another until you came along with your trolling and off-topic personal religious attack.
instead you predictably started whining about how right you were in prevous threads
And I was, just as I'm right in this thread. So I take it you will not retract your absolutely incorrect statement about me in this thread so I can mark it as another proven willful lie I can refer to later? Actually, your time for doing so has passed, as an honest person would have retracted when initially notified of the incorrect statement. I just wanted to be nice and give you one more chance.
Yep, I knew you’d weasel, like always. You think you’re smarter than God, when the fact is almost anyone with a pulse can see through your BS.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.