Since the launch of the iPhone by Apple Inc., the rest of the gadget world has seemingly turned nasty towards the fruity logoed one. First it was Blackberry’s CEO who called out Apple and Steve Jobs for treating its partners like crap.
Blackberry Co-CEO Jim Balsillie recently criticized Apple’s seeming willingness to commoditize the iPhone as an Apple product, rather than bringing AT&T Wireless in as an equal partner. He also said he has issues with the iPhone being free of AT&T’s logo and with activation having to go through Apple’s iTunes music store rather than the AT&T Mobility site.“It’s a dangerous strategy,” says Balsillie.
Now another big time player in the gadget world has fired off a salvo.
Sony Chairman and CEO Howard Stringer recently called Apple chairman and CEO Steve Jobs ”greedy” according to a New York Post report. Stringer was part of a panel at the Allen & Co. media executive gathering, along with Barry Diller of IAC, Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Sergey Brin of Google.
Stringer reportedly quipped: “It’s funny that Jobs accuses record companies of greed because they want to get paid for music downloads,” adding that Job is the “greedy” one because he wants a world where “only he makes money.” The Postreports that Moderator Anderson Cooper suddenly changed the subject, but Barry Diller of IAC pointed out the comment, at which point the Sony CEO backed off with a political response.
It seems as if we might have a gadget CEO cat-fight looming in the dark. Who will be the next CEO to take a shot at Jobs?
Take a minute to cast your vote in our Greatest Modern-Day CEO Poll below.
John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods apologized to shareholders on Tuesday for posting comments about his company under a false name on Yahoo Internet message boards. In the postings, Mackey talked up his company while predicting a bleak future for Wild Oats Markets Inc. , the rival his firm is trying to acquire.
Mackey’s apology comes following an announcement that the SEC has launched an investigation into the incidents which took place over an 8 year span.
“I sincerely apologize to all Whole Foods Market stakeholders for my error in judgment in anonymously participating on online financial message boards,” Mackey said in a statement on Tuesday. “I am very sorry and I ask our stakeholders to please forgive me.”
Last week, Mackey had defended the postings, saying he “posted on Yahoo! under a pseudonym because I had fun doing it. Many people post on bulletin boards using pseudonyms.”
Corporate governance expert Nell Minow of the Corporate Library agrees with our view here at CEO Smack…that Mackey won’t remain CEO for long.
“The fact that somebody has twisted his arm into saying he’s sorry just isn’t enough,” Minow said.
We agree with Ms. Minow. Mackey’s cavalier approach to business and his “I’m holier than thou” attitude towards the Federal Trade Commission are probably going to come back to haunt him on this one. We doubt the Whole Foods Board of Directors lets this one slide. Stay tuned………………………………………………………………….
BBC News is reporting that the co-founder of Matchbox Toys, Jack Odell, has died, aged 87. An engineer, Odell moved into the toy trade after joining a die-casting company that had moved into toy production.
His daughter inspired the creation of his most famous invention in 1948 after her school only allowed the kids to take in an item that would fit into a matchbox.
The miniature green and red road roller he developed for her to show off to friends became the forerunner of the Matchbox Toy empire. Among the firm’s most famous designs was a miniature Coronation coach, made to commemorate Queen Elizabeth’s succession to the throne, which sold about a million copies.
“If Blackberrry Co-CEO Jim Balsillie is concerned about the arrival of Apple Inc.’s much-hyped iPhone, he’s doing a good job of keeping it to himself,” Chris Sorensen reports for The Toronto Star.
“The Co-CEO of Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM), which makes the popular line of BlackBerry email devices, said in an interview at RIM’s Waterloo headquarters that he’s not losing sleep over Apple’s efforts to upend the wireless market in much the same way as its wildly popular iPod music devices changed the way people acquire and listen to music,” Sorensen reports.
“In fact, Balsillie said he couldn’t even confirm whether anyone at RIM’s sprawling campus has managed to get their hands on an iPhone, which went on sale in the United States a week ago amid a torrent of media coverage,” Sorensen reports.
“‘I haven’t seen one,’ he volunteered with a shrug of his shoulders and a bored expression. ‘It’s possible, I guess. I mean, you watch these things, but you really have to just focus and do your job.’”
There have long been reports that Steve Jobs and Apple have a reputation for using its partners to its benefit, and then giving them none of the credit for a product’s success.
If a product does well, Apple gets the spotlight…but if a product has a bug or if there is a technical problem, Apple leaves their partners to shoulder the blame.
Blackberry Co-CEO Jim Balsillie sees the same thing happening with the recent launch of the iPhone.
Balsillie recently criticized Apple’s seeming willingness to commoditize the iPhone as an Apple product, rather than bringing AT&T Wireless in as an equal partner.
He also has issues with the iPhone being free of AT&T’s logo and with activation having to go through Apple’s iTunes music store rather than the AT&T Mobility site.“It’s a dangerous strategy,” says Balsillie.
“It’s a tremendous amount of control. And the more control of the platform that goes out of the carrier, the more they shift into a commodity pipe.”
It looks like Apple has done it again.
BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion’s co-CEO Jim Balsillie looks at the iphone as a device that is shining such a light on enhanced-feature mobile devices that BlackBerry is catching the wave of consumer interest as well.
“I’ve said before they (Apple) did us a great favor because they drove attention to the converged appliance space,” explained Balsillie in a conference call after last Thursday’s corporate quarterly earnings announcement. “The attention to it has quite frankly been overwhelmingly positive for our business.”
Our View:
Balsillie is probably dead on. In our opinion, the iPhone is primarily a device for someone looking to consolidate their phone and their iPod…not for business users who rely on their mobile device for receiving corporate email and for conducting other business functions. There is a great likelihood that the iPhone marketing craze and word of mouth buzz has caused many (mature adults) to reevaluate their current device and ultimately decided they needed business functionality…thus deciding to purchase a Blackberry over iPhone.
It doesn’t hurt that AT&T the exclusive phone carrier for the iPhone also sells Blackberries.
It also didn’t hurt that RIM gave a glowingly positive earnings report the day before the iPhone’s release. The company also announced it would split its shares on a 3-for-1 basis by way of stock dividend. The result: RIM stock rose C$36.46 to C$211.68 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. On Nasdaq, it soared $33.66 to $199.25.
