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AT&T Playing Hardball With Apple?

Posted by Zonk on from the trouble-in-the-boardroom dept.

Ponca City, We Love You writes "There's some interesting speculation from Cringley on why AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson let drop that a new version of Apple's iPhone will be introduced in 2008. The announcement is sure to cut into Apple's Christmas sales and could also cost ATT a million new customers and at least $1 billion in market cap, says Cringley. 'It is no coincidence that Stephenson made his remarks in Silicon Valley, rather than in San Antonio or New York,' says Cringley. 'He came to the turf of his 'partner' and delivered a message that will hurt Apple as much as AT&T, a message that says AT&T doesn't really need Apple despite the iPhone's success.' What may be troubling the relationship between AT&T and Apple is the upcoming auction for 700-MHz wireless spectrum and AT&T's discovery that Apple may be joining Google in bidding."

8 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. Echo by 12WTF$ · · Score: 5, Funny
    "Hello? AT&T Customer Service?"
    "Good Morning, How may I assist you?"
    "I hear this echo..."
    "An echo? Do you mean on your AT&T phone?"
    "No. It's your CEO. He is just repeating what Steve Jobs said a few months ago"

    "You can expect a 3G iPhone later next year... We are working on the next iPhone already, the one after that and the one after that." Regent Street Apple store in London, September, 2007

    --
    Cryonics - Keep cool and carry on.
  2. Re:Pscht! by pipatron · · Score: 1, Funny

    It's just like a car, it's made of a group of smaller objects, so it should really be referred to as in plural.

    --
    c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
  3. Re:Pscht! by ClassMyAss · · Score: 4, Funny

    Why do Americans refer to a large group of people as singular?
    Yeah, I don't understand why you would ever refer to a large group of people as singular, either. I guess some people are just dense.
  4. Hero$ by GodInHell · · Score: 2, Funny

    Free the spectrum. . . Save the world. . . Make $$$

    -GiH

  5. Re:"Sometime next year"? No $hit, Sherlock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    Or, maybe 13 months?

    Sorry. I started on that post back in August.
    I'm a slow typist.

  6. Steve Jobs by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 2, Funny

    And Jobs says, "Okay, FUCK AT&T. Pull their contract on grounds of assassination of our business model; sue them for our projected lost business; and start shipping iPhones for Verizon only. Let's see how they like their new potential customers flocking straight to the competition." Then AT&T's stock price drops.

    --
    Support my political activism on Patreon.
  7. Re:The word "group" is singular... by PHPfanboy · · Score: 4, Funny

    they're now called at&t, not singular

    --
    29 mpg. YMMV.
  8. Re:The word "group" is singular... by FutureDomain · · Score: 2, Funny

    Why do Americans refer to a large group of people as singular?

    In this context of AT&T, it might be better to refer to them as "Cingular".

    --
    Hydraulic pizza oven!! Guided missile! Herring sandwich! Styrofoam! Jayne Mansfield! Aluminum siding! Borax!