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Steve, Please Buy Us A Carrier

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Re: Steve, Please Buy Us A Carrier

#41

Post by kalleboo »

zdw wrote: post #6
otterley wrote: post #3

Apple had every opportunity to sell the iPhone standalone, without any participation from the carriers. Given the iPhone's obvious lure, especially when first released, Apple might have succeeded in upsetting the long-lamented model where devices are locked to and subsidized by carriers. They could have easily directed customers to purchase the iPhone and direct customers to purchase service separately. Why didn't th…

The original iPhone wasn't carrier subsidized - you could walk into the store and buy one, without a contract. You'd set up the contract when you got home, through iTunes. It was locked to Cingular/AT&T, but that was, as the other commenter said, more of a Visual VM thing than anything else. I'm thinking this started because Apple wanted to change the way phones were sold, but changed because selling a $599 (or $399…

The problem with selling a $599 phone in the U.S. market was that unlike in other countries where an unsubsidized phone will get you a cheaper plan (thus making it cheaper in the long run), IIRC the iPhone plans were actually more expensive.

Re: Steve, Please Buy Us A Carrier

#42

Post by epscylonb »

jamesbkel wrote: post #10

This brings up some good points, but the title and structure are a bit misleading. For that who haven't read this yet, the middle section raises the reasons for Apple to acquire a carrier (most of which I thought were poor reasons, which almost caused me to stop reading). The author concludes with a rather coherent detailing of why it would in fact be silly for Apple to acquire a carrier (especially only US).

It is a slightly whimisical what if? blog post. I didn't find it all that misleading or confusing.

Re: Steve, Please Buy Us A Carrier

#43

Post by pornel »

zdw wrote: post #2

Fails the three primary market advantages that Apple always goes for: - Lots of opportunities to innovate (regulation and spectrum issues with the FCC, patents on the major wireless technologies involved, all the infrastructure equipment is produced/procured from 3rd parties) - Large profit margin (carriers aren't generally 40-60% margin operations like the rest of Apple) - Low ongoing overhead (lots of maintenance o…

Those problems are opportunities if one knows how to solve them, and Apple might.

- Apple knows how to pull strings at FCC (e.g. appearance of Apple's products of FCC's website seems coordinated with official announcements). Apple isn't scared of patent battles and is well armed in this field. They can make their own hardware and work with 3rd party vendors.

- Apple keeps high margins on their computers, while PC manufacturers are in the race to the bottom. Perhaps a "premium" carrier could pull that off too? (especially if they could do more innovations like visual voicemail).

Re: Steve, Please Buy Us A Carrier

#44

Post by smackfu »

gzp wrote: post #7

Apple would be spending half its cash pile to acquire a domestic company. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of the company's sales are international [1]; furthermore, I would guess that much of the company's growth is in international markets, especially in Asia. Unless Apple is seeking to improve its operational expertise in running carriers in order to buy up carriers throughout the world, this acquisition would be a very cu…

Note also that much of that cash pile is overseas already, and might have tax implications if it is used domestically.

Re: Steve, Please Buy Us A Carrier

#45

Post by ary »

omnipath wrote: post #32
ary wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could make roughly the same points about the iTunes / record label relationship. If it were enough of a strategic advantage it might happen. I wouldn't cross your fingers though.

I'm sorry, but only two of those points are true. When iTunes came out, there was nothing like it in the market. A great way to manage and buy new music all at one place? Plenty of room for invention. The proof that is was such a unique experience? The labels spent the next 2 years fighting tooth and nail for 'control' of their music catalogs back from iTunes.

That's hardly true. iTunes is/was based on SoundJam which Apple bought. Before iTunes was available on Windows Apple recommended a third-party package (the name of which escapes me) for using iPods on that platform. The iTunes Music Store had (nascent) competition, and it arrived after iTunes had been released for a while.

Re: Steve, Please Buy Us A Carrier

#46

Post by i5ao »

zdw wrote: post #2

Fails the three primary market advantages that Apple always goes for: - Lots of opportunities to innovate (regulation and spectrum issues with the FCC, patents on the major wireless technologies involved, all the infrastructure equipment is produced/procured from 3rd parties) - Large profit margin (carriers aren't generally 40-60% margin operations like the rest of Apple) - Low ongoing overhead (lots of maintenance o…

These sound like reasons for Apple not to do retail stores. :)

In fact, I think Apple has lots of room to win in these areas. From TFA, think how much waste there is in cell implementations for legacy/interop-- not to mention carrier overhead-- that could be eliminated if Apple made every single device on the network?

Apple is full-stack from today's perspective. What if tomorrow's "stack" includes the towers and the complete customer billing relationship? People might say this was an obvious step along the road to e-wallet phones.

I agree this feels a little far fetched. But so did AAPL becoming the world's largest company, and switch to x86, before the fact... :)

Re: Steve, Please Buy Us A Carrier

#47

Post by omnipath »

ary wrote: post #45
omnipath wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but only two of those points are true. When iTunes came out, there was nothing like it in the market. A great way to manage and buy new music all at one place? Plenty of room for invention. The proof that is was such a unique experience? The labels spent the next 2 years fighting tooth and nail for 'control' of their music catalogs back from iTunes.

That's hardly true. iTunes is/was based on SoundJam which Apple bought. Before iTunes was available on Windows Apple recommended a third-party package (the name of which escapes me) for using iPods on that platform. The iTunes Music Store had (nascent) competition, and it arrived after iTunes had been released for a while.

You mean MusicMatch? Yeah, I had MusicMatch, and it was horrid for connecting to ipods and other gadgets. Plus, the buying experience was a mess. I don't remember SoundJam too well, but I don't seem to remember that you connect devices to it to transfer music, and I'm completely certain you couldn't buy music from the software itself.

Remember, this is back during the heydays of Napster, Audiogalaxy and the free download craze for music. iTunes, along with mp3.com, made it completely easy to download legit copies of music, which hadn't been possible before.

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