Telstra Operations Chief Greg Winn has unleashed a blistering attack on Apple's new iPhone, labelling it old hat and suggesting that Apple doesn't have the gumption to produce a capable mobile phone.
Telstra Operations Chief Greg Winn has unleashed a blistering attack on Apple's new iPhone, labelling it "old hat" and suggesting that Apple doesn't have the gumption to produce a capable mobile phone.
According to an AAP report, he thinks Apple is not up to entering the world of mobile telephony: "There's an old saying -- stick to your knitting -- and Apple is not a mobile phone manufacturer, that's not their knitting."
I wonder how many people are kicking themselves for suggesting, way back when, that Apple is not in the digital music player business. Obviously, any attempt by the company to move out of computers into that market segment could only result in disaster.
Winn is also reported as making a slightly-confused attack on the Apple's claim that the iPhone "ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, completely redefining what you can do on a mobile phone."
Not so, he thinks: "I think people overreacted to it -- there was not a lot of tremendously new stuff if you think about it... It was maybe kind of cool on the touchscreen technology but touchscreen technology is another domain, so it's only a matter of time before it went to the device."
Other, more experienced mobile phone manufacturers are just about to launch their own "iPhones", he says: "You can pretty much be assured that Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and ZTE and others will be coming out with devices that have similar functionality."
Whether or not one agrees with the way Apple is using them, the 200 patents in the iPhone and Steve Jobs pointed remark during the launch of the phone that Apple "intends to protect them", makes extremely unlikely that any major player will be producing a device with the same style, flair and good looks as the iPhone.
In any event, Winn seems immune to the charms of Apple's design philosophy, which emphasises not only innovative technology, but even more importantly, innovative design, as the keystone of award-winning devices. And increasingly number of people are willing to pay a premium for the quality of Apple design, preferring the way Apple adds value through "functional beauty" over the "similiar functionality" offered by other companies. Think Apple vs. Dell.
Telstra has a long-standing record of resisting the cutting edge. For example, although it could have run its ADSL1 broadband network at up to 8 Mbp/s, for "operational reasons" it capped it to 1.5 Mbp/s. Only when competitors began to offer ADSL1 at full throttle through their own DSLAMs, did Telstra feel the need to open up the choke on its network.
No one claims that the iPhone is perfect. But it is certainly revolutionary enough for its full impact to fall off the radar at Telstra. That's a shame even if it is not a surprise.