All Articles Tagged ceo-snap

Pop quiz. You run one of the few CDMA-based mobile providers in the world, and while you were rumored to have passed on the original iPhone, thus locking you out of the North American market for Apple’s revolutionary handset, even your Old World parent, Vodafone, has finally, desperately signed up to carry the iPhone 3G in many other markets. Bottom-line, you missed the boat to the point of now being landlocked, and what do you have to say for yourself? You’ll do better? You’ll try harder? You’ll stop with the iClones and actually try to out-innovate the iPhone?

Not if you’re Ivan “the Terrible” Seidenberg, who’s big answer to the iPhone 3G is:

“Steve Jobs eventually will get old . . . I like our chances.”

Yup. Steve Jobs, who helped bring the Apple II (command line), Mac (graphical interface), and iPhone (multi-touch) to the masses, in spite of health concerns that might make lesser CEOs (subjected company not only included but vehemently singled out) lose continence in themselves, will — gasp — grow old.

If that’s best Seidenberg can come up with, his board has a far bigger reason to panic than competition from Apple.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Seidenberg has opened his mouth about Apple only to firmly insert feet.

And luckily (for our funny bones), it’s not likely to be the last!

Michael Dell has gone done and opened his mouth about Apple again:

“Yeah, I could take [Steve Jobs in a fight].”

He’s gone done and done it before, of course:

“What would I do [with Apple]? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”

And we all know how well that’s worked out. Any reason to think this time will be different? Let’s check out the tale of the tape:

Ego: Both are crushing. However, Jobs’ company is called Apple, not Jobs. Edge: Dell.

Build: Jobs is Vegan thin. Dell is big as Texas beef. Edge: Dell.

Reach: Dell once made profits based on Walmart-style supply-chain “management” and low labour costs. Jobs continues to make profits based on unparalleled technological design and innovation. Edge: Jobs.

Record: APPL: $187.01, DELL: $21.69. Edge: Jobs.

Judges?

Dude, you’re getting Vulcan nerve pinched by Mac.

(tip’o the hat to Dieter for the inspiration)

Read

Ah, comedy, thy name is Lazaridis!

What, you may ask, makes the CEO of Blackberry manufacturer RIM so knee slapping-ly funny? Deadpan Setups (on April 27th) like this:

THERE’S a reason that R.I.M. is averse to the iPhone’s glass pad. “I couldn’t type on it and I still can’t type on it, and a lot of my friends can’t type on it,” says Mike Lazaridis, R.I.M.’s co-chief executive and technological visionary. “It’s hard to type on a piece of glass.”

Followed by absolutely killer punch-lines (on May 13th):

The BlackBerry Thunder, as it is codenamed now, (all you “reporting” on it as the Storm are incorrect) will launch in Q3 of this year. It is a full touchscreen BlackBerry — no slide out keyboard

Please. Ouch. My ribs. I can’t take it…

Ahem… Okay. So, if RIM is now iCloning a touchscreen of their very own, is it really that Lazaridis and his friends can’t type on a touchscreen, or that they just can’t type?

(Would go a long way towards explaining those tic-tactiles, wouldn’t it?)

We interrupt this episode of RIM, Lose or Draw? for a quick iPhone JEOPARDY update!

Last time, Blackberry “pusher”, and outage-plugger extraordinaire Mike Lazaridis took “Post SDK Over-Reactions” for a thousand:

“Talk — all I’m [hearing] is talk about [the iPhone's chances in Enterprise]. I think it’s important that we put this thing in perspective.” [...] “Apple’s design-centric approach [will] ultimately limit its appeal by sacrificing needed enterprise functionality. I think over-focus on one blinds you to the value of the other.” [...] “Apple’s approach produced devices that inevitably sacrificed advanced features for aesthetics.”

While it’s still too early to go to the judges, a new competitor has stepped up to the podium, CNet’s Matt Asay (via Daring Fireball).

What is the most expensive phone, by far, on the market?

I walked into my local AT&T Wireless store on Saturday fully expecting and prepared to get a Blackberry 8820. My Blackberry 8800 died while I was in London last week [...] Unfortunately for Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry, the in-store price for the 8820 was the same as the iPhone. I deliberated for all of three seconds and walked out with the iPhone.

What about “lack of functionality”? Lack of the tic-tactile keyboard, man?

I thought I wouldn’t be able to type on the iPhone without tactile feedback. I was wrong. I’m actually faster on the iPhone than I ever was on the Blackberry, and that’s with only an hour of “training.”

Still, regrets you must have a few, like SMS blasts, animations on email deletion, and the lack of Flash?

But all its good points make up for these negatives. The iPhone is an amazing device. It was inevitable that I’d find my way to it, just as it’s inevitable that it will continue to take more and more market share, eventually breeding lower-end devices that will change the way we use mobile “phones.” The iPhone is designed too well to be anything less than inevitable.

Good answer! But is RIM too far ahead? Can the iPhone catch up? Or is it too close to call? What do you think?

Will Flash come to the iPhone? Won’t it? Will it? Won’t it?

GearLive said yes. Adobe said maybe. El Jobso said too slow, too lite — where’s my middle?!. El Narayenso (er… Adobe’s CEO) said SD-OK! And… now Adobe clarifies that ambiguous yes with another maybe. Kinda:

“[T]o bring the full capabilities of Flash to the iPhone web-browsing experience we do need to work with Apple beyond and above what is available through the SDK and the current license around it. We think Flash availability on the iPhone benefits Apple and Adobe’s millions of joint customers, so we want to work with Apple to bring these capabilities to the device.”

Hooked on the iPhone’s first reality soap yet? Us neither, but we’ll keep on it until those wacky techs finally hook up for good or call it quits forever.

GearLive reported Flash for the iPhone was immanent. Adobe retorted that it was all up to Steve Jobs. His Steveness resorted to telling investors that Flash desktop was too big, Flash Lite was too small, and they were missing a product that was juuuusssst right.

Well, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen hopes Apple’s newly released SDK will help Adobe deliver that middle ground, with or without Jobs’ blessing. Speaking to investors, Narayen said (via Apple Insider):

“We believe Flash is synonymous with the Internet experience, and we are committed to bringing Flash to the iPhone. We have evaluated (the software developer tools) and we think we can develop an iPhone Flash player ourselves.”

Hopefully without those peskyprivacy and security problems, b’okay?

Given the restrictions imposed on 3rd party apps, unless Apple gives Adobe “special dispensation” it seems unlikely that even Adobe could get Flash working in an unplugged-in, sandbox environment, but we’ll see.

Eerily similar to Sun’s Java announcement immediately following the iPhone SDK launch, all that remains now (in terms of rival interactive development platforms) is Microsoft’s Silverlight. Balmer, get your dance shoes!

Just when you thought it was safe to switch to WinMob of Misfortune, iPhone JEOPARDY is back with a bonus round!

Joining us via lifeline is Google Android, first among Linux vaporOS’s (sorry Nova, Access, and OpenMoko!) and fresh from CEO Eric Schmidst’s latest iPhone briefing at Apple’s Board of Directors meeting, we give you the suddenly chatty group manager for mobile platforms, Rich Miner:

“There’s a much larger potential market on Android than for the iPhone. There are things I saw people doing with the first version of the Android SDK that it seems like you can’t do with the iPhone at least at the moment.”

Then, as if catching the Shining-like glare in Daddy Jobs’ eyes, he quickly added:

“[If I were a developer] I’d certainly be looking at the iPhone, and if you believe there will be lots of Android phones out there, as we do, I’d be developing for both platforms.”

Now, for those of you just joining us, remember that Google’s core business is advertising (no, not search, that just pulls the ad revenue), not OS development.Few companies can be good at more than one thing, and Apple is traditionally very good at hardware and software (and wisely leaves Google and Yahoo to do the heavy services lifting on iPhone). Google hasn’t managed to monetize everything in it’s vast repertoire yet, much as Microsoft is struggling to grow outside of Windows and Office.

If Google plans on hitting WinMob standard and Symbian on the low-end and leaving Apple to duke it out with WinMob premium and Blackberry on the high, maybe Miner is making the kind of sense that does. However, if Eric Schmidt is the fox in Apple’s development henhouse and (bigger and), Google can ship a working OS sometime this decade, things could get interesting.

This. Is. iPhone JEOPARDY!

Welcome everyone to the smartphone space where competing CEO’s answer in nothing resembling the form of a question. Lucky for us, however, they’re quick on the buzzer and their bold, bodacious pontifications, more often than not, come right back to bite them on their assets.

“Why We’re Not Worried about the iPhone” for 100

Previously on iPhone Jeopardy, smartphone innovator and Folio-smasher, Ed Colligan of Palm/Treo fame jumped on the iPhone launch:

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

Strongly put. Let’s go to the judges…

“Initial iPhone buyers were 10 times more likely than other new phone buyers to have previously owned a Treo.”

Ouch! The correct answer seems to have been “Who are the Mac guys who walked in with a far more than a descent phone and dug into my lunch?” Better luck with Nova!

Daily Double-Talk

Next up was famed Microsoft CEO, monopolist, and internet dance phenom, Steve Balmer who went for the steal:

“You can get a Motorola Q for $99. [...] [Apple] will have the most expensive phone, by far, in the marketplace.”

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”

Really? Survey says!

The struggling American electronics company Motorola is considering breaking itself up through a sale or flotation of its poorly performing mobile phones business.

NPD’s figures make Apple’s Sept. quarter iPhone sales look even more stellar. Apple sold 1.12 million iPhones last quarter, representing 27% of NPD’s U.S. smartphone market and 3% of the overall Q3 cellphone market.

D’oh! The correct answer looks to have been, “Who was hardly the most expensive and grabbed even more mindshare than their impressive first-year market share (not to mention dominating customer satisfaction reports) while companies I mentioned prepared to flee the space?” No bonus points for lack of bold ActiveSync licensing predictions. Come back next time with WinMob 7, b’okay?

Final Jeopardy!

Now we have current smartphone market leader RIM’s business “pusher”, and outage-plugger extraordinaire Mike Lazaridis taking “Post SDK Over-Reactions” for a thousand:

“Talk — all I’m [hearing] is talk about [the iPhone's chances in Enterprise]. I think it’s important that we put this thing in perspective.” [...] “Apple’s design-centric approach [will] ultimately limit its appeal by sacrificing needed enterprise functionality. I think over-focus on one blinds you to the value of the other.” [...] “Apple’s approach produced devices that inevitably sacrificed advanced features for aesthetics.”

Final answer? Okay, pens down and no peeking!

Well, what do you think? Will RIM’s success just keep on multiplying, or did the Blackberry Boss just gamble it all away?

Find out next time on iPhone Jeopardy!