Lordy we all get so tired of hearing that. It's a lame excuse for bad behavior.
I disagree, at that point they knew they were going to lose their exclusive rights to the iPhone, everybody did. So what's wrong with them trying to find a different phone supplier? Absolutely nothing!!
That's the way business works. I used to sell to Wal-Mart and always thought they were the best retailer to do business with for all sorts of reasons. All I heard from other businesses and friends was that Wal-Mart doesn't care about me or my company and they'll simply get a Chinese factory to make what we were making cheaper than we could. Our business was smarter than that - we didn't just sit around waiting for the day when Wal-Mart (or any other mass retailer) came to tell us they found a cheaper source. We did the work, talking to several Chinese factories, who at the time actually couldn't compete with our company. If you're smart in business you're always looking at options for both suppliers and customers, because having all your eggs in one basket does not make for a good long-term strategy.
It can be good in the short term (AT&T and the original iPhone are a perfect example), but eventually will bite either party in the butt in time.
Just ask Rubbermaid how well things went when Wal-Mart had too much control.
This is no surprise -- nor is it anything we wouldn't expect. AT&T wanted to keep most of the revenue and have a smart phone that they could "improve" for their carrier. Apple wanted to have a phone that acted with services married to the phone and control over features.
Apple won and AT&T still made money. They would have preferred however, that everyone have a service contract for an expensive brick -- so that's the dynamic that almost every TelCo is battling with.
Why? It is just business. First rule of investing is 'Diversify'.
ANY company that relies on one primary vendor or one primary customer is in s a dangerous place because they've lost control of their company's future. What AT&T did was a very cautionary effort.
Lordy we all get so tired of hearing that. It's a lame excuse for bad behavior.
Geez - you must have flunked out of business 101. This is actually very appropriate, protective business practice - to do otherwise is to bury you head in the sand, which, now that you brought it up, is EXACTLY what RIM did (as well as Nokia also). Their behavior is actually characterized in business parlance as "bad behavior". Doing nothing, in the face of obvious competition, is the same as making the wrong competitive choices. And, by the way, the term "Free Market" is not actually made up of dirty words - they actually describe natural human behavior in the business world. Anything else is just artificially constrained or controlled, and usually bound to have unintended consequences - mostly bad. Give me Laissez Faire economics any day.
AT&T has every right to diversify their product offerings, contain their costs associated with the iPhone. Its hardly a scumbag move and regardless all carriers sell a competing product that are for some better than an iPhone and for others are not comparable to an iPhone. It comes down to what a user wants and what the carriers are willing to carry and sell.
RIM on the other hand failed to grasp the consumer market, failed to understand how much the end users demands to use the iPhone would impact the business market due to growing trend of BYOD. RIM is simply becoming a Super Nova, end stage of a very bright tech company. BOOM . . . they are gone.
Mike Lazaridis had it wrong and Jim Balsillie had it right. Looks like Mike won and RIM as a company lost. Perfect example of the stupidity of having co-CEO's.
WTF? How do read that out of what happened? Where do you live ... Bizarro opposite land?
If they had done what Mike wanted and focussed on a competitor to iPhone right away, they might have had a chance. It was years of piddling around with stupid ideas like Balsillie's and not doing anything that caused the demise.
They should have acted, immediately, and came up with an appropriate response to the iPhone.
The company's own sales division reportedly forecast a coming shift in the smartphone market in 2010...
Really... 2010. When the iPhone 4 came out. Really?
My aged mother could have done that in 2009 when she got her first iPhone. My friend's dog was all over this in 2008 when it downloaded its first app...
Samsung is probably laughing at Apple the same way. How's Apple's supplier *diversification* strategy working out?
Probably quite well. Apple doesn't do much that is knee-jerk, it bides its time and strikes when it is ready. See what it has done to Google in Maps and search (by keeping it out of Siri's front-line sources). It took 3 years to get Maps to be good-enough to kick Google off the stock Maps app. Samsung will get its day. It takes years to invest in and build up the competitors (see Sharp and LG partnerships). When those are ready and TSMC are ready to make the A6 or A7, we'll see how much Samsung laughs.
Anyway, Samsung is doing very well copying Apple's every move... maybe they should make all their phones with Qualcomm chips (like MS want them to do for WP8!!).
WTF? How do read that out of what happened? Where do you live ... Bizarro opposite land?
If they had done what Mike wanted and focussed on a competitor to iPhone right away, they might have had a chance. It was years of piddling around with stupid ideas like Balsillie's and not doing anything that caused the demise.
They should have acted, immediately, and came up with an appropriate response to the iPhone.
RIM would have been way better off licensing their technology to other companies than trying to compete with the iPhone and Android. That's what Balsillie wanted to do. They tried to compete with their own phone and couldn't do it.
If I'm from Bizarro opposite land then I would just like to say your comment was very intelligent and well thought out.
So it was OK for Apple to talk to other carriers but not for AT&T to talk to other handset manufacturers (since Apple must have been talking with competitors before AT&T's exclusivity ran out or they wouldn't have been able to move as quickly when it ended)? That's some rather strange logic.
As long as there was no restriction in the agreement preventing them from talking to other manufacturers and as long as no confidential information was shared, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. In fact, prudence makes talking to alternative suppliers obligatory.
Ridiculous story.
The only thing ridiculous is that AT&T would think it has to ask RiM to make a decent competitor as if the thought never crossed their mind.
The Storm was probably the worst phone I ever had the displeasure of dealing with, issues and problems of nightmarish proportions, it was overhyped and probably did more to alienate RIM users than any other single thing.
Vodafone (who own 45% of Verizon) jointly developed it with RIM.
AT&T was probably doing this in response to Verizon, not wanting to be caught out if one of Verizon's strategies unseated the iPhone.
After the Storm's abysmal failure, Verizon hit on Droid before finally getting the iPhone.
The only thing ridiculous is that AT&T would think it has to ask RiM to make a decent competitor as if the thought never crossed their mind.
Of the options available at the time, I'd think RIM would be a good pick given their presence in the Enterprise. Android was all-over-the-place, Nokia was on its laurels and MS.... Weren't they planning mock funerals for phones?
Comments
Amen!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by WelshDog
Lordy we all get so tired of hearing that. It's a lame excuse for bad behavior.
I disagree, at that point they knew they were going to lose their exclusive rights to the iPhone, everybody did. So what's wrong with them trying to find a different phone supplier? Absolutely nothing!!
Sorry for the double post
Just ask Rubbermaid how well things went when Wal-Mart had too much control.
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalclips
Their goals in partnering with RIM were to prevent Apple from gaining "outsize influence in the market," the report said.
How did that work out for you AT&T? ROFL
Samsung is probably laughing at Apple the same way. How's Apple's supplier *diversification* strategy working out?
This is no surprise -- nor is it anything we wouldn't expect. AT&T wanted to keep most of the revenue and have a smart phone that they could "improve" for their carrier. Apple wanted to have a phone that acted with services married to the phone and control over features.
Apple won and AT&T still made money. They would have preferred however, that everyone have a service contract for an expensive brick -- so that's the dynamic that almost every TelCo is battling with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by massconn72
What a bunch of dirt bags AT&T must be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
Why? It is just business. First rule of investing is 'Diversify'.
ANY company that relies on one primary vendor or one primary customer is in s a dangerous place because they've lost control of their company's future. What AT&T did was a very cautionary effort.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shogun
If my wife did the equivalent I'd be ticked off. Business doing it? Eh.
You should hire a PI and find out how much she making in her "business."
Quote:
Originally Posted by WelshDog
Lordy we all get so tired of hearing that. It's a lame excuse for bad behavior.
Geez - you must have flunked out of business 101. This is actually very appropriate, protective business practice - to do otherwise is to bury you head in the sand, which, now that you brought it up, is EXACTLY what RIM did (as well as Nokia also). Their behavior is actually characterized in business parlance as "bad behavior". Doing nothing, in the face of obvious competition, is the same as making the wrong competitive choices. And, by the way, the term "Free Market" is not actually made up of dirty words - they actually describe natural human behavior in the business world. Anything else is just artificially constrained or controlled, and usually bound to have unintended consequences - mostly bad. Give me Laissez Faire economics any day.
AT&T has every right to diversify their product offerings, contain their costs associated with the iPhone. Its hardly a scumbag move and regardless all carriers sell a competing product that are for some better than an iPhone and for others are not comparable to an iPhone. It comes down to what a user wants and what the carriers are willing to carry and sell.
RIM on the other hand failed to grasp the consumer market, failed to understand how much the end users demands to use the iPhone would impact the business market due to growing trend of BYOD. RIM is simply becoming a Super Nova, end stage of a very bright tech company. BOOM . . . they are gone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GadgetCanada
Mike Lazaridis had it wrong and Jim Balsillie had it right. Looks like Mike won and RIM as a company lost. Perfect example of the stupidity of having co-CEO's.
WTF? How do read that out of what happened? Where do you live ... Bizarro opposite land?
If they had done what Mike wanted and focussed on a competitor to iPhone right away, they might have had a chance. It was years of piddling around with stupid ideas like Balsillie's and not doing anything that caused the demise.
They should have acted, immediately, and came up with an appropriate response to the iPhone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
The company's own sales division reportedly forecast a coming shift in the smartphone market in 2010...
Really... 2010. When the iPhone 4 came out. Really?
My aged mother could have done that in 2009 when she got her first iPhone. My friend's dog was all over this in 2008 when it downloaded its first app...
Really... (Seth & Amy), Really????
Quote:
Originally Posted by mstone
Why? It is just business. First rule of investing is 'Diversify'.
That and AT&T wanted "a better deal" than they were getting from Apple.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tooltalk
Samsung is probably laughing at Apple the same way. How's Apple's supplier *diversification* strategy working out?
Probably quite well. Apple doesn't do much that is knee-jerk, it bides its time and strikes when it is ready. See what it has done to Google in Maps and search (by keeping it out of Siri's front-line sources). It took 3 years to get Maps to be good-enough to kick Google off the stock Maps app. Samsung will get its day. It takes years to invest in and build up the competitors (see Sharp and LG partnerships). When those are ready and TSMC are ready to make the A6 or A7, we'll see how much Samsung laughs.
Anyway, Samsung is doing very well copying Apple's every move... maybe they should make all their phones with Qualcomm chips (like MS want them to do for WP8!!).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gazoobee
WTF? How do read that out of what happened? Where do you live ... Bizarro opposite land?
If they had done what Mike wanted and focussed on a competitor to iPhone right away, they might have had a chance. It was years of piddling around with stupid ideas like Balsillie's and not doing anything that caused the demise.
They should have acted, immediately, and came up with an appropriate response to the iPhone.
RIM would have been way better off licensing their technology to other companies than trying to compete with the iPhone and Android. That's what Balsillie wanted to do. They tried to compete with their own phone and couldn't do it.
If I'm from Bizarro opposite land then I would just like to say your comment was very intelligent and well thought out.
The only thing ridiculous is that AT&T would think it has to ask RiM to make a decent competitor as if the thought never crossed their mind.
The Storm was probably the worst phone I ever had the displeasure of dealing with, issues and problems of nightmarish proportions, it was overhyped and probably did more to alienate RIM users than any other single thing.
Vodafone (who own 45% of Verizon) jointly developed it with RIM.
AT&T was probably doing this in response to Verizon, not wanting to be caught out if one of Verizon's strategies unseated the iPhone.
After the Storm's abysmal failure, Verizon hit on Droid before finally getting the iPhone.
Android "won", the rest is history.
Though given their current situation, it probably hadn't.
Of the options available at the time, I'd think RIM would be a good pick given their presence in the Enterprise. Android was all-over-the-place, Nokia was on its laurels and MS.... Weren't they planning mock funerals for phones?
Once was Cingular,
now AT&T
So, AT&T, how did that work out for ya?