Aussie telco Telstra slams Apple iPhone: "people over reacted to it"
By John Pospisil
A very senior executive at Australia’s leading telecommunication carrier, Telstra, has slammed the iPhone, telling Apple that it should “stick to its knitting”.
“There’s an old saying - stick to your knitting - and Apple is not a mobile phone manufacturer, that’s not their knitting,” Telstra’s Chief Operating Officer and second in charge, Greg Winn told AAP in a report carried by local papers Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
It had been generally thought that Telstra was the most likely carrier to distribute the iPhone in Australia as it operates the only 2.5G (also known as EDGE) mobile phone network (the present model iPhone works with 2.5G).
Winn pointed out that rival mobile phone makers Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, ZTE and others will be coming out with mobile phones that offer the same or similar functionality as Apple’s iPhone. Winn was even dismissive of the iPhone’s much-raved-about touch screen.
“I think people overreacted to it,” Winn is reported as saying, explaining that touch screen technology was always bound to come to mobile phones eventually.
Apple’s problems with Cisco over the iPhone name, also didn’t impress Winn, who saw it as a “marketing oversight”. Neither did Winn understand how Apple was intending to roll out the iPhone globally when it had made an exclusive distribution agreement with US-based Cingular.
“Cingular is not a global company,” Winn noted dryly.
Winn was also worried by the lack of a replaceable battery, and the associated lifecycle management and upgrade issues.
However, Winn did say that the iPhone would probably be a successful initially.
Based on Winn’s lack of enthusiasm, and given that Apple hasn’t ruled out a 3G iPhone, it’s more than likely that one of Telstra’s competitors will be handling the iPhone by the time it arrives in Australia next year.
Greg Winn, along with CEO Sol Trujillo, and marketing chief, Phil Burgess, are all US citizens, who all worked together at US West. They are dubbed the ”three amigos” are well known for their forthright, take no prisoners approach to doing business and very public attacks on competitors and even the Australian Government.
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February 16th, 2007
Someone sounds worried…
February 16th, 2007
Sounds like sour grapes to me.
February 16th, 2007
““There’s an old saying - stick to your knitting - and Apple is not a mobile phone manufacturer, that’s not their knitting,”” Let’s all remember this one. It will look very foolish in 10 years. It puzzles me that Mr. Winn should look to Nokia, MOT, Ericsson and etc, when these are the VERY companies who been unable to deliver compelling products in the past. Like Creative Zen discovered 5 years ago, sometimes the world changes and your ecological niche shrinks or simply disappears. Ask the next dinosaur you see.
February 16th, 2007
It does sound like sour grapes - what’s worse, why go out of your way to berate Apple - who has a LONG MEMORY about this sort of thing. If they had just stuck to positive about their ongoing relationships with moto, nokia, samsubng, etc, that would’ve been fine but to publically call out Apple seems like business suicide - if nothing else, it alerts consumers once again that something more must be up because after all, who are you going to trust - a bunch of yokels at a cell pone company who keep trying to sell you lowfi music at high rates or slow bandwidth and shoddy service or Apple, the ipod company? (to most average consumers).
February 16th, 2007
The guy is right, the iPhone is an overhyped turd.
February 16th, 2007
Yeah Apple should stick to their knitting, just like they did when they decided to build a better MP3 player. They should have also stuck with the command line interface of the Apple II. This guy is scared.
February 16th, 2007
Apple probably has already picked an Australian partner or is in talks with would be partners - obviously Telstra wasn’t selected. LMAO :PPP And BTW while Cingular isn’t a global company today - just wait now that they are AT&T I do believe things will change. The company has deep pockets.
February 17th, 2007
Id say Jay is probably right - Apple may have already selected Optus as their partner for iphone, (they have had a long relationship with Optus), and Telstra is a strictly only Microsoft partner. Very odd thing to say about the iphone, considering Apple’s ipod success - he basically saying building phones is strictly for phone specialists?, how hard is it to build a GSM handset?
February 17th, 2007
Tesltra is a boring non-innovating dull company that suffers from over-bloated management. Its middle-managers (who this guy is) are reknowned for there short sighted ignorance and lack of imagination. Methinks this guy will never be heard of again and once the iPhone becomes PERVASIVE Telstra will eat their words…not that there is a ‘their’, it is a mindless beached whale. Actually Sol Truhijo (spelling) escaped the US to now run it…he might have a thing or two to say to Mr. Winn.
February 18th, 2007
It really does sound like one of those quotes that will come back again and again over the years to haunt the speaker. Suffice it to say that I am a moderately satisfied Telstra customer for my mobile service. When the iPhone comes out, it seems I will be an ex-Telstra customer - and I won’t be alone in that!
March 25th, 2007
The spin on this is terrible. Winn was not “slamming” the iPhone. He was giving his analysis of the iPhone in rather even-handed manner. I encourage everyone to read the original article from the AAP, linked on the bottom.