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AT&T Playing Hardball With Apple?
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."
basically, the fact that apple will unveil a 3g iphone is (and was) obvious - with or without that att dude blabbing about it.
the people who'd care about the existence of a higher network tech iphone have either bought an iphone already or they haven't and won't get a 2.5 iphone, anyway.
he also didn't say when next year. "next year" is a pretty long time frame.
It should not come as a surprise to anybody (except perhaps the logic-impaired Cringely) that perhaps Apple might feel the need to release a product update in a rapidly evolving market sometime before the sucker is completely obsolete. The fact that 3G capability is a glaring hole in the current model is not exactly front-page news. Also, "sometime next year" could mean a span as long as 17 months, an eternity in the cell phone market. I would expect that it will receive a flash capacity bump at the same time (at least a doubling).
Also, where does the $1 Billion number come from? The same dark, damp, place that produced the "fact" that IBM was going to lay off half of its worldwide workforce?
Cringely: Wild Speculation for folks too dumb for Dvorak.
SirWired
Speculation is one way to put it, crazy conspiracy theory is another.
So AT&T CEO decides to drop 1 million customers and 1 billion in market cap (!?) in order to send a message to Apple not to bid on the wireless spectrum auction, that's his theory? If I was an AT&T shareholder I'd be wondering why not just phone them instead...
Is this the same guy who predicted Apple and Intel merging
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I know AT&T is a much larger, more powerful company than Apple, but exactly how can they play hardball with Apple on this issue? If Apple drops them, signs with another carrier -- or even none -- for their next iPhone, it would be AT&T that loses money, not Apple. Apple has already made a nice bundle with the iPhone, so they probably don't really need AT&T anymore and as popular as the iPhone is, AT&T can be replaced. Does AT&T think that the primary reason people want the iPhone is because of AT&T? Obviously that is not the case, since so many people are unlocking them as soon as they get them. Seems like it would be the other way around, with Apple in a good position to play hardball with AT&T. Maybe I need more coffee, because I just don't see it.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
The industry is going to go through some wrenching changes because new players are going to be more willing to open their networks (for real, not pretending to like Verizon). What new players? Clearwire and Google, or a combination thereof.
This will make it easier for phone/device manufacturers to provide genuinely innovative products. If AT&T wants to stick it to Apple, they're going to find their bargaining position weakening. Quickly, I hope.
This is all about telecoms versus mobile phone manufacturers, also known as business as usual. If a telecom thinks that is business is more than just offering connection, as in being a carrier, and as more being an service provider or an experience, then the number one competitors are the handsets manufacturers as they are the ones beside operator to influence and have place in customers hand.
Just to give some examples... Nokia has worldwide market share of approximately 40%, but in US its market share is only 5%. Why is it? Well it could be because they don't manufacture CDMA based handsets anymore (direct attack against Qualcomm), but mainly because in US handset business in operator business where operators offer to consumers what they think suites best for operators not for the consumers. To operators it suites that handsets are limited or walled, and to operators it suites better that the brand power of an handset is less than the branding power of operator. This has meant that operators don't want to offer Nokias handsets as to them Nokia is too powerful player in branding and service base, and so offering Nokias handsets more would hurt their position in longer time-frame.
What basically AT&T is doing to Apple is just business as usual. Kick them where it hurts. Weaken their position and try to make a better deal with them. Also it should be noted that market situation has changed as major handset manufacturers and also lesser known Asian manufacturers are all offering and bringing iPhone clones to markets. For AT&T it could be lucrative to just get some iPhone clones from far east with bargain price and brand them by themselves.
Of course there is remote possibility that mobile operators in US are colluding against Apple. There are only few GSM based operators in US, and I could easily imagine them speaking with each other to maintain status-quo in the market. So in example AT&T kicks Apple first, then as Apple talks to T-Mobile or other player, they just throw their hands up and say "oh, but we are not interested at that price", and voila telecoms win.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
The average consumer doesnt understand the concept of unlocking.
Don't you believe it. The average consumer here in the UK certainly does understand the concept of unlocking, normally done down a local market for about £5. What they don't understand the concept of is paying £270 for a phone - phones here are things that come free with your contract, paying even £50 would be considered unusual. There are exceptions, such as the N95, but that's at the very top end of the market only and is still considered to be unusual.
Cheers,
Ian
But the press release also made another thing quite clear: their application does not include any partners. So. No partners means no Apple partnership, which means that there was nothing for AT&T's CEO to find out.
You misread the summary. By "joining Google in bidding" the poster meant that Apple will also be bidding on the 700MHz spectrum--not that they will partner with Google in bidding for it. This isn't a partnership--it's the two going head-to-head for something they both want.
This guy's the limit!
While not a perfect measure of a company, currently Apples market cap (159.5 Billion) is greater than IBM's (144.9 Billion). AT&T is currently at 231.7 Billion market, cap, so by that commonuly used measure, AT&T is still bigger.
I would wager that IBM didn't blow off Apple, but that IBM really couldn't deliver a performance competitive in a form with a TDP appropriate for laptops, with the final straw being Intel releasing Core2, for all intents and purposes erasing the instructions per clock advantage the PPC architecture had. (I know Apple made the jump before that, but I guarantee you that Intel shared the Core2 info with Apple).
Apple smartened up and realized that even when IBM made up for it, the simple fact was that Apple wasn't able to consistently differentiate themselves on hardware performance (and it really wasn't one of their goals now anyway), so they decided to play in the same market as their competitors, ensuring that they wouldn't appear to be left behind at any point in time. Extra bonus of Windows compatibility in the face of the market reality of desktop software. They chose to differentiate on brand, styling, and software (to an extent).
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
...Chief executive Randall Stephenson let drop that a new version of Apple's iPhone will be introduced in 2008...Doesn't Apple sue information leakers out of existence? Not that it takes an Einstein to guess that anyway.
Apple needing AT&T? Only for a few special iPhone features. If Apple opened the iPhone to any carrier and passed off that special feature set, AT&T would likely be everyone's last carrier choice so who needs who?
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