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."

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Older article

[Lars T.]

From Financial Times Deutschland (March 11th) original article in German - (imagine a Google translation link here, the URL refuses to work when posted here).

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.

Re:Motorola's Loss

[Anonymous Coward]

but the company(apple) isn't extremely succesful.

Congratulations! You've posted the most misinformed comment of all of Slashdot this week!

(Clue: Apple is sensationally profitable, as computer-makers go, and has hundreds of billions in raw cash just lying around.)

Re:Motorola's Loss

[polyhue]

Yeah this is a big clash of marketing cultures - Apple's (which they may be the only citizen of) vs. mobile phones, which are demo'd and announced often months ahead of release. Vastly different philosophies.

I'd bet Apple contractually stopped Moto from unveiling them - I doubt Moto would acquiesce out of kindness. This is the kind of thing Apple would have in legalese in any contract for someone featuring their software so prominently.

iTunes Phone Delayed. How To Pay Carriers?

[asjk]

From Investor's Business Daily

Details of the delay remain vague. But industry watchers say the Motorola-iTunes phones, as well as digital music on cell phones in general, still needs to find a way for carriers to make money.

"The network operators may see some incremental revenue from digital music downloads," said Gartner analyst Ben Wood, "but it won't be the bonanza many predicted."

Product details are scant. But the iTunes-equipped Motorola phones were supposed to download songs from a desktop computer -- via a cable or a short-range wireless technology like Bluetooth -- and store up to 100 songs.

Although a potential boon for both Apple and Motorola, it's hard to say how the wireless carriers will fit in.

Since customers would buy songs directly from Apple or download their CDs from a computer, carriers don't stand to gain much selling Motorola's iTunes phones. Carriers subsidize the cost of phones, so they want ways to recoup their money.

edited for brevity

Re:Revenge

[PCM2]

That would be some serious sour grapes, considering that the semiconductor division of Motorola has been spun off as an entirely different unit, called Freescale. That would be a little bit like punishing Lucent because AT&T Wireless agreed to merge with Cingular.