Slashdot Mirror
Lack Of iTunes Phone Marketing Irks Motorola
Alias777 writes "Motorola has criticized Apple for not marketing three proposed new phones that will be able to play downloaded music from Apple's iTunes service. "[Steve Jobs'] perspective is that you launch a product on Sunday and sell it on Monday," says Ron Garriques, president of Motorola's mobile phone division. In response, Motorola has delayed release of the iTunes-equipped phones a few more months."
Seems to me that Motorola can complain all they want about Apple. If they delay their product out of annoyace at Steve, they're the ones who will lose revenue, not Apple. Apple is going to continue to sell iPods with or without Motorola.
I don't get why they would even whine about this. They should concentrate on launching their phones and spend a little less time criticizing someone who has been an extremely successful businessman and might know a thing or two about consumer marketing.
do all we care about on the god-damn website is this company that is the largest distributor of UNIX in the world...oh wait
Motorola's marketing department is plenty large. One would think that they would market it themselves rather than delay a product launch. Perhaps they have other reasons for the delay and this is the cover.
If anyone knows how to market a product that works with Apple technology, it is Apple. Conventional marketing doesn't quite fly with their products, and would stand completely out of place beside their current efforts. Motorola should realize that their hardware stands to make them a lot of money given the market/mindshare of iTMS. They should just learn to ride the wave when it comes.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
From TFA:
Motorola Inc. did not show upcoming phones designed to work with Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes digital music service at a recent tech show because of the pair's differing approach...
Uhm. So Apple isn't marketing Motorola's phones for them. Motorola is responding by NOT showing their phones at a tech show, that is, they aren't marketing their phone at a tech show.
Motorola is "punishing" Apple for not marketing Motorola's phones by... not marketing the phones??? That's bizarre to me.
Why is this Apple's job anyway?
The Statue of Liberty is America's lawn jockey.
Motorola is in the huff as they are not getting any free marketing so they huff and they puff and a slashdot story apears , Free advertising to the target audiance *cough*
..
Now even worse , as they are not getting any free advertising they are delaying the phone and stabing a potentialy large profit in the foot , Has anyone told them apple make verly little profit on Itunes and make most of it from hardware sales
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Obviously, this is Steve getting revenge on Motorola for dragging its feet in PowerPC development. (Just think of all the money Motorola's lack of effort cost Apple.)
This article claims that Apple stopped Motorola from showing the phones. An article on Heise News even claims journalists were kept from making photos of the empty space where the phones were supposed to be presented.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
"If they [Motorola] delay their product out of annoyace at Steve, they're the ones who will lose revenue, not Apple."
This is exactly true, and everybody knows it, including Motorola.
But consider the following statements, which one sounds better?
"We, Motorola, are not done with our product that we have been hyping for a while now, so please trust us, it's not vaporware, we really will ship it at some unknown point in the future."
or
"Any delays in our product shipment are entirely Apple's fault."
This is called blame shifting, and sounds a lot like what 4 year old children do to each other ("I only punched her because she looked at me funny! It's not my fault, it's hers!").
I also want it to have nothing more than what I need to do that task as well. I guess I wont be buying any of these phones. Seriously, whats wrong with a phone being.....a phone?
Motorola complaining about how Apple markets? Need anyone remind Mr. Garriques that the Apple brand, which just had its most profitable, highest revenue-generating quarter in the company's entire history, has achieved the status of cultural icon and introduced one "it" product after another since Jobs' return?
Nevermind the fact that Motorola's current line up is, on an economy of scale, as unwiedly, unattractive, unimaginatively-designed and poorly built as the DPC-550 flip phone they introduced some ten years ago.
Garriques has missed the point. Jobs' approach is right (big surprise).
The more advance notice you give of a product offering, the more the momentum dies down when the product is actually available--especially if you aren't ready to deliver. Apple learned this lesson the hard way in the mid-90s when the first PowerPC Macintoshes were not being delivered in time to meet demand.
Apple has taken numerous steps to ensure sustained growth... one of these is delaying marketing until the product arrives. Then they blitz... Doing it the other way around, you're banking everything on that first week. Now people know it's out there, big deal.
When Apple has a great idea, what they want to do is create yet another cultural phenomenon. One way to do this is to rely heavily on word of mouth to generate buzz... Do you see ANY other computer manufacturers inserting logo stickers in their packaging? Do you see anyone driving a car with a Windows or Dell sticker on the rear windshield? You'll see it with Apple owners all the time (myself included). Why? Because since the days of Guy Kawasaki and the EvangeList, evangelizing has always been one of Apple's marketing strongholds... it has to be backed up, of course, by good product.
Dell isn't an amazing piece of machinery, it's a discount box... Naturally, who the hell cares to advertise they own a Dell? Owning a Dell certainly doesn't signal that you have, indeed, arrived. It just means you're cheap.
Another thing... Apple's stores... walk by... do you see how it works? Huge glass windows, uncluttered real estate... white backdrops against which the products stand out like fashion displays.... People are magnetized by it and go in. Make no mistake, every element of the Apple Store design was pretty carefully conceived to maximize marketing potential.
Want a PC Clone? Go to Best Buy and search for it amidst a sea of heavily cluttered displays with unknowledgeable people who don't know the damnedest thing about computers. So there you are.
Apple builds an experience, and they want to keep building it. You know... I never would have thought it, but the first time I was peeking into a Mercedes at the Mercedes-Nissan dealership that serviced my Nissan, the salespeople knew exactly what they were doing when they handed me the keys to an $80,000 S-class sedan with only these words, "Just bring it back before we close." That's all it took... I was hooked by the experience of driving that thing and could never be the same. Next car I got was a Mercedes C240 with a very competitive lease. Why? Oh, come on... they know I'll be back for more.
So does Apple.
So Motorola don't like the way Apple promote things?
Given the fact that every time I see a Motorola advert I want to smash the thing with a brick, but iPods are so trendy that no-one even says "mp3 player" when "iPod" will do, this is rather like Lada complaining about Rolls Royce's build-quality.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Motorola hasn't delayed the release of the phone, it's just delayed showing and announcing the phone. From the several articles on the subject that I've read, Motorola doesn't in fact appear to be "irked" and they have not in any way "criticized" Apple. In fact, from the AP article on the subject, Motorola seems to be agreeable to the decision: "'We were doing it (the announcement) the old way,' Zander said." Alias777 probably should have read the article.
Apple is no stranger to the 'market way before you ship' either. Although they don't typically wait YEARS before actually shipping a product they are hyping, The F5 and 17" Powerbook were among the worst offenders in recent years. Some apple stores did not even get a 17" Powerbook until a couple of months after the announcement.
OTOH we have been hearing about Nano-ITX for TWO years now and VIA is still not shipping.
What Moto is saying here is that the marketing of a phone is different than the marketing of a normal consumer product, because the chain of sales has so many links. Moto sells in bulk to carriers, a carrier markets though an array of retail and wholesale channels, and it simply isn't possible to pave the way for a new product through those channels with "need to know" secrecy.
They probably had it on display but it is so small you didn't notice.
Motorola isn't do it part saying that their phones can download via iTunes. I'm in the market to change my cell phone service and replace my phone and I went to the Motorola website and nowhere is it said that I can download iTunes. I did read some of the phones had MP3 players but no reference to Apple iTunes.
The fundamental problem is most likely because Motorola's primary customers are Verizon, Sprint, and Cingular.... where Apple's primary customers are just people.
The wireless companies take time to react to things. They are slow. They need to know about a product well ahead of time so that they can develop their marketing materials, do studies to determine the proper price point, and work out any implementation details on their networks. So Motorola normally gives them a several month lead time on new products so they can get ready.
Apple, on the other hand, sells to you and me. We don't need prep time to buy an iPod, we just buy one.
The thing is, in this market, end-user customers are a tiny, tiny fraction of the total market. Unless and until the big cellular carriers are selling this phone, Motorola just isn't going to move very many. The 'announce Sunday, ship Monday' culture simply DOES NOT WORK for their customers, the people who buy 98% of their product. Without that long lead time and solid coordinated pushes from the wireless carriers, an iTunes phone won't sell well. By the time the channel is really ready to start pushing them, the initial buzz will be all gone, and the product may never do well.
This is a case, I think, where Motorola is right to be upset with Apple. Apple, however, may not care. An announcement today of products available in the summer may impact THEIR sales as people delay purchases. So this move is likely in Apple's best immediate interest. It's a big problem for Motorola, and may have a bad long-term impact on Apple due to fewer iTunes customers.
Apple may be becoming a bit dangerous to partner with.... it'll bear watching.
This article reminds me of those beach T-shirts "Divers Do It Deeper" and so on.
The thing is that Motorola doesn't do a whole lot of innovating. They do a whole lot of embracing and extending. There is a completely different phylosophy at work:
Embrace and Extend model:
(1) wait for an innovation
(2) wait for market reaction
(3) reverse engineer competetive product
(4) profit by reduced R&D costs, fewer "oops" moments (a la Mac Cube, etc)
The key to this is to let the public know you will 'soon' have a product just as good or better than the innovator's, preferably at a lower cost.
Innovators Model:
(1) be first to market with a faster/better/cheeper way of doing something
(2) DRIVE market reaction (e.g. get early adopter testimonials, etc)
(3) build the product inhouse under high levels of secrecy to ensure (1)
(4) profit by first mover advantage (Netscape), free publicity and market cache of being the innovator (TiVo), and hopefully market domination (eBay, iPod).
The key here is to surprise the market, and competition, with your product. Ususally, Innovators don't have the manufacturing/distribution capacity to deliver mass quantities on day 1 anyway. Because the product or service is innovative, the customer really needs to see it and use it to perceive the value.
So merging an innovator with an embracer yields this Apple/Motorola conundrum. Just weight the Pros and Cons of an early product announcement:
Pre-availability Announcement:
Pros
- Media exposure (free publicity)
- Market reaction to better guage demand
- Price point reaction to better guage promotions
- Use of the above to negotiate deals with Carriers to sell the phone
Cons
- Media exposure will be lower when product is released
- Competitors get sneak-peek at what is coming
- Impulsive customer base (young adults) may find their appetite has changed once product is available
- Loose the impact/anticipation of an "unveiling"
Plus, in this cell phone market, products promissed and then delivered half baked or way late (Sprint's Bluetooth Sony Ericsson T810 or whatever that was less than expected) really drive customers away.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
The real reason Motorola is complaining is that Apple wanted them to market a one-button cell phone.
How many times did Motorola hurt or delay Apple by delaying the PPC chips they were making? This is definitely the pot calling the kettle black.
[Steve Jobs'] perspective is that you launch a product on Sunday and sell it on Monday,
They left off the last step. It should be: Launch a product on Sunday, sell it on Monday, actually ship it to the customer two months later.
I love my Mac, but c'mon, pratically every new Apple product launch is accompanied by a long waiting list for said product immediately afterwards.
As I saw it, Motorola was planning to heavily pre-market these phones. That is, announce them and show them off long before they were ready to be sold.
Then Apple said, "Don't do that." They didn't want hype surrounding something that wasn't even available yet. This is something Apple has been moving away from.
So, really, Moto was going to announce these too soon, and agreed not to based on Steve's feedback. That's totally different from what this post implies.
My Photography - http://ian-x.com
The Deathlings (comic) - http://thedeathlings.com
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
It would be one less device in someones pocket.
Gee, the apple apologists are saying Motorola is at fault and the only one who can be blamed.
Now *there's a surprise*!
Umm...beyond selling the phone, Motorola doesn't make a dime off iTMS sales. Apple does. Furthermore, very few devices (read: none except the iPod) support iTMS. If Apple doesn't hurry up, the market will turn, because there will be differentiation; every other music service will hawk "oh, you can't download that music to your phone or PDA! You can with ours though!" Come to think of it, that's what they have been doing for quite some time. What has been Apple's response? To just keep cranking out iPods.
Sorry, but I see Motorola's point. Apple promotes all sorts of devices to show people what they can do with Apple products, and it wouldn't kill them to put a Motorola phone on the front page rotation for www.apple.com, or the iTMS main page, etc...do demos in-store and have Verizon salespeople come in, etc.
The very fact that Motorola delayed the phones shows they feel they're getting the short end of the stick. If they stood to make a lot of money off the deal with Apple, they would be much more careful so as to not kill the deal and loose revenue.
Please help metamoderate.
2) Jobs is used to selling to a built-in audience clamoring for new product
3) Jobs knows something about the future of iTMS that Moto and we don't (e.g., it won't survive the labels' greed)
Nobody seems to have actually read the story. Motorola isn't mad at Apple for not promoting the phone. Motorola isn't mad at or irked by apple at all. Apple just requested that Motorola not launch the phone months before its ship date, so Motorola didn't.
They were going to announce it the standard way (i.e. a long time in advance). They're now going to launch it the Apple way (right before it ships). That is all.
Motorola takes forever to develop and launch phones. For example, the v600 and the phones based on the same platform (basically all of the vXXX phones with some exceptions) were all supposed to start shipping in Q2 of 2003. They ended up not shipping until Q2 of 2004, literally a year late.
A couple of years ago one of my very good friends was hired as part of the small team designing new phones for Moto when they realized they were losing market share because their phones basically sucked. Even he didn't know when the v600 was actually going to ship, and he helped design the damned thing!
Differences in marketing between consumers and phone carriers aside, Motorola has a horrible history of delivering their products late. Past performance would indicate that they are shifting the blame to Apple in this instance even though they have no idea when their product will truly be ready.
edited for brevity
Those "marketing issues" are just to decoy the real issue.
Apple is going to roll out iTMS subscription service in near future, and they want Moto phones to support it as well.
Maybe Motorola's iTune phones just aren't up to Apple's standards to carry the brand? Often Moto products have great potential but end up being stunted in some way, like their A630, great form factor but lacking in UI and display. I think there's little to get excited about in a normal-ish phone that plays iTunes. What Apple should do is maybe take its iPod Mini or Shuffle (display added) and incorporate a phone (GSM please) with Motorola's assistance, that would be exciting.
Could it be a question of how to pay the carriers?h 01.asp?v=3/ 18
http://www.investors.com/editorial/tec
Was your wife in sales? As an avid German car enthusiast, I've gained comprehensive knowledge of the history of Mercedes-Benz and DaimlerChrysler (formerly Daimler-Benz) for years... and I have to beg to differ with you here. In 2001, when the sub-S class models were being revamped, including the C, Mercedes incorporated a number of technologies into their C and E class that were borrowed from the S class.
While a lot of the bells and whistles (e.g. Parktronic, Distronic, Bose Beta 2 stereo, AMG Speedshift, 12-way vs. 10-way seat adjustment, etc.) are not available in the C240 (AMG C55 notwithstanding), many of the safety, steering, throttle, braking, etc. systems are fundamentally the same.
The technology in Brake Assist derives directly from the Mercedes Sensotronic system previously featured only in the SL line. The body frame, except for dimensions, uses largely the same materials and same safety design. The C240 incorporates, like most E and S models, 3 firewalls instead of the standard single firewall found in most car engine compartments. ESP is also standard. The steering system is power-assisted as in the E and S, capable of phenomenal control at speeds above 100mph (I know, personally, from experience).
All Mercedes sedans (with perhaps the C230 Kompressor being the only exception... I am not certain) feature front, front-side, and rear-side, and A-pillar mounted window-curtain airbags. From the C240 to the SL65, Mercedes models all have Telematics (i.e. Tele-Aid) either standard or optional. The only exceptional difference is in the Maybach, which is a Daimler brand, not a Mercedes model type... the Maybach 57 and 62 feature Tele-Diagnostic which transmits diagnostic information to the CAC. Not even the $190,000 AMG SL65 features Tele-Diagnostic.
The ABS, ESP and BAS systems are all standard from the C240 to the SL65... the key difference is in the SL65, which additionally, on top of the standard BAS system, has brake caliper stabilizers to keep the brake shoes from shuddering when braking from high speeds. Additionally, all models from the C240 to the SL65 feature an electronic throttle. Even 5-speed touch-shift is available in the C240. The only major difference is in the new CLS class which uses a 7-speed automatic transmission. All Mercedes engine timings are managed by the Mercedes engine management system and all require 91 octane minimum. Otherwise, the technology is mostly the same... with obvious exception to the C230 hatchback... but thats why I specifically stated from the C240 up (which is still a standard C-class model, contrary to your observations)... and of course I'm also excluding the Mercedes-branded supercars such as the $350,000 SLR McLaren and the $1.2 million CLK-GTR.
Yes, I admit, the cupholders in the SL65 are neater than mine (though they probably break just as frequently), and the suede leather on the instrument panel scoop is neat (until the goony ergonomics of the SL's cupholders cause you to spill coffee on it, thus destroying it... ), and I admit that there's more legroom in the S600... but the differences that most dealers tend to notice in the Mercedes C, E and S lines are all bells and whistles... fundamentally, the cars most critical features, safety, comfort and control... utilize the same design and technology.
As a person with a background in corporate marketing (no, I don't mean working the retail counter at Foot Locker), those products whose quality doesn't speak for itself generally, yes, do better with a lot of pre-sales hype... but those products which are built upon a reputation for q
That isn't what I'd call a fundamental difference because the way the engines work and interact with the throttle and braking systems is, by and large, the same, from the C to the S... again, with minor exception to AMG Speedshift... but then you'd have to compare the AMG C55 to the AMG E55. Basically the same engine, but different displacement and horsepower (the E55 has 493hp while the C55 has around 362)... same Speedshift system, though.
Again, not a fundamental difference.
Scratch that... same displacement in the C55 and E55 (obviously... they're both 5.5 liter V8 engines)... just different horsepower.
My bad... the E55 is 469hp, not 493hp. The S55 is 493hp. Anyway, my point's the same... C55, E55, S55... fundamentally same drivetrain, displacement, braking and throttle systems... different horsepower.
How do you like them apples Motorola!
Delaying this thing purposefully for revenge on Motorola for leaving Apple high and dry with the languishing G4 processor seems most Jobsian to me.
Something intelligent here.
Apple announces a new product on Sunday, and then are forced to postpone the product until a couple years from Sunday because their CPU supplier can't deliver the goods (cue rumors of Moto's dirty fabs).
Personally I'd be happier if Moto just went away and stopped trying to pull Apple into the mire. Moto is run by typical American idiot businessmen who put the bean counters in charge of R&D and send their CEO's off with fat bonuses, all while the company lays off their workforce and the stock plummets.