“Apple’s soon-to-be-launched iPhone will be irrelevant to business users because it is a ‘closed device’ and does not support Microsoft Office, a senior executive with the software giant said this week,” David Braue reports for ZDNet Australia.
“‘It’s a great music phone, and I’m sure it will be fantastic and have an interesting user interface,’ Microsoft’s Asia-Pacific head of smartphone strategy Chris Sorenson told press during a recent visit to Australia,” Braue reports.
“‘However, it’s a closed device that you cannot install applications on, and there’s no support for Office documents. If you’re an enterprise and want to roll out line of business applications, it’s just not an option. Even using it as a heavy messaging device will be a challenge,’ the executive added,” Braue reports.
Full article here.
This Microsoft executive is simply using the main talking point of the FUD campaign against Apple’s iPhone, namely: “iPhone is not for business.” It’s a weak point, as Microsoft should know, since Research In Motion has already long ago proven it wrong with the Blackberry, but it seems to be all they’ve got. These things happen when you’re instantly outclassed and shown to be 5-10 years behind the times, as Apple did to the mobile device industry with their iPhone unveiling. The fact is that business people will decide which device they want to carry and their businesses will adapt to it. Many will choose Apple’s iPhone.
This tack isn’t new. Goofy quote whore Rob Enderle tried out this same talking point back in early February (here). So did some no name from an internal network security provider (here), perhaps trying to protect his business by pushing Microsoft products while discouraging the use of Apple products — you know, like the IT guys who “choose” Windows’ and its inherent insecurity for their own job security. Microsoft even trotted out their trained dancing monkey to fake cackle and recite back the same talking point (here). There have been many others; we’ll spare you.
The fear they spread is their own. And they’re right to be afraid. (Hey, at least they got one thing right!)
That Microsoft is still so reliant on Office to fuel their multitudinous and wide-ranging failures is a sad indictment of their so-called management. That they use Office to try to leverage others out of markets or keep them out of markets is something the antitrust authorities should closely examine. We don’t use Microsoft Office for this reason, among others, and also because we’ve found that – gasp! – we can survive just fine without using a single one of Microsoft’s bloated, unimaginative products, thank you very much.
Related articles:
The massive FUD campaign against Apple’s iPhone ramps up – January 10, 2007
iPhone looms like 800-pound specter over beleaguered Motorola – April 18, 2007
Apple and Cisco explore iPhone compatibility – April 18, 2007
Apple iPhone wannabes don’t even come close to what Apple has built – April 05, 2007
Why iPhone could be more than worth Apple’s price – April 03, 2007
Wired: Apple iPhone has wireless industry scrambling – March 30, 2007
Report: AT&T Wireless says Apple iPhone release date June 11 – March 30, 2007
Apple iPhone steals CTIA Wireless 2007 show; FCC chairman wouldn’t give it back – March 27, 2007
AT&T has received 1 million Apple iPhone inquiries so far – March 27, 2007
Apple’s iPhone ‘preverberations’ rock cell phone industry – March 26, 2007
Sony CEO Stringer talks Apple iPhone: ‘I wouldn’t bet against Steve Jobs’ – March 17, 2007
The Beeb tries to equate ‘smartphones’ with Apple’s iPhone – March 16, 2007
Cellphone users set their sights on Apple’s iPhone; look to get out of existing contracts – March 15, 2007
Getting ready for Apple iPhone: How to get out of your 2-year cellphone contract – March 13, 2007
Wired’s Mortensen: Apple is under-selling iPhone with their 10 million figure – March 13, 2007
Apple’s marketing machine does it again: iPhone generates $400 million in free publicity – March 10, 2007
Analyst: Apple’s iPhone has Palm ‘shaking in their sandals’ – March 09, 2007
Which company is most at risk from Apple’s looming iPhone onslaught? – March 04, 2007
Morgan Stanley reiterates Apple ‘buy’ – says market is underestimating iPhone demand – March 01, 2007
Apple’s 10 million iPhone sales target for 2008 would surpass most other smart phone sales – March 01, 2007
Apple COO Tim Cook: iPhone is a revolutionary product; you get what you pay for – February 28, 2007
Apple COO Tim Cook: iPhone on track for June launch – February 27, 2007
Goldman Sachs: 4 reasons to be bullish on Apple’s iPhone – February 26, 2007
Apple airs iPhone teaser ad during Oscars – February 25, 2007
Apple preps 3G iPhone model for Europe – February 25, 2007
The once-mighty Palm Inc. doomed to decline and failure – thanks to Apple’s iPhone – February 23, 2007
Palm CEO can’t stop talking about Apple iPhone – February 19, 2007
Digit takes a closer look at Apple’s iPhone – February 14, 2007
Microsoft caught off-guard, beaten badly by Apple’s iPhone innovations – February 13, 2007
Apple’s soon-to-be iPhone rivals sound just like iPod rivals circa 2001 – February 01, 2007
O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile battle for exclusive rights to Apple iPhone in UK – January 26, 2007
Rogers to offer Apple iPhone exclusively in Canada – January 25, 2007
Research in Motion downgraded due to Apple iPhone competition – January 23, 2007
Ihnatko: Hands-on with Apple’s iPhone (which runs Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard) – January 18, 2007
Microsoft CEO Ballmer laughs at Apple iPhone – January 17, 2007
RealMoney: Apple just blew up the whole damn mobile-phone supply chain with its new iPhone – January 11, 2007
eWeek: Apple iPhone fallout: ‘They must be crying in Nokia-ville and other telephony towns today’ – January 10, 2007
Jefferies downgrades Motorola on fears of market share loss to Apple iPhone – January 10, 2007
The only thing really wrong with Apple’s iPhone is its name – January 09, 2007
Time: ‘iPhone could crush cell phone market pitilessly beneath the weight of its own superiority’ – January 09, 2007
Analyst: Apple iPhone should be given its own category – ‘brilliantphone’ – January 09, 2007
Apple debuts iPhone: touchscreen mobile phone + widescreen iPod + Internet communicator – January 09, 2007
Mac users should not buy Microsoft software (or hardware) – May 16, 2003
I love the MacDailyNews take. Who writes them?
C’mon… WHO ARE YOU!???
Fudflinger-The Movie(review)
Jobs, Steve Jobs. 007b(rev9) takes on Goofy Quote Whore Rob Enderle in a deceitful game of pussyCat and Mighty Mouse, pitting the RDF against the Mouth In Motion Experiment (MIME), a confusing tactic where the mouth moves, and although sound comes out, it is useless verbiage designed to confuse the weak.
These are strong test for the RDF, a force that shows what is possible when minds function with oxygen, verses the smothering affect of the FUD.
Will Rob blow Jobs through the Gates of Billhalla?
Or will Jobs iPhone call rob the Whore of his mouth’s satisfaction?
Who cares-I just want the new line of iMacs with Leopard to come out….
Who said iPhone needs business to succeed? Is consumer market really that small? And 100M iPods were sold to whom? Business? Analysts seem to notice nothing else but business. Well, it is hard to see anything else when you are kissing someone’s as*. They call them ANALysts for a reason.
If it needs to support Office, why might it not go the OpenOffice route?
Microsoft is headed right down the pan. Just give it time.
No one outside of Apple & ATT knows if the iPhone will be able to open/view office documents. I am guessing that it will by using a “Lite” version of the new and improved iWork suite.
Yup, the ole, “Its just another pretty but useless Apple device” argument. ‘Cause that’s been working really well for the last three years.
Microsoft doesn’t know how to do anything but fight. Fight in court, fight in the media. However their income is mainly taking money from large organizations (they will steal from anyone but big organizations have bigger pockets) and so they automatically dismiss individual, real people. They can’t see the trees for the wood. No good for business means MS can’t sell 10,000 to company X or government Y. Apple will sell many millions to individual real people who make their own minds up.
Microsoft really doesn’t understand that; people, no they are not, they are consumers of corporate content.
iPhone: A Microsoft free zone™ – works for me, probably for a lot of others too, probably for more as Vista’s influence spreads.
“Goofy quote whore”
Rob’s succinct, three word curriculum vitae.
Also, it’s tattooed on his left butt cheek after losing a bar bet.
Yosemite Sam with guns a’blazin’ is on the right cheek. Great horny toads!
TMF
Umm…
I was going to ask
how you knew…
but nevermind.
(damn Tequila)
Hey, who hasn’t seen Enderle’s ass?
TT: It’s pretty easy to figure out when someone is 90% ass.
BTW, I just discovered that my electric cheese grater doesn’t open Word files so I threw it out.
Q. Does the Zune open (or squirt) Office files?
A. It doesn’t matter because it’s an embarrasing failure. But it does come in pink. (Why does that sound dirty?)
‘my electric cheese grater doesn’t open Word files’
Haha, mine does.
now what am I gonna do with this shredded paper…
wake up Apple, and smell the coffee.
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=9022169&fsrc=RSS
My espresso machine runs Linux.
Or at least runtime java.
….the execs at MS are in a blizzard fighting their way inbetween snowflakes. Chris Sorenson is just one of the first MS sled dogs to go snowblind.
My suggestion to Chris is to spend some time in an isolation tank pondering the advent of the iPhone and how your boy Ballmer is going to
hold up when they start appearing all over the Redmond campus.
What kind of dork does serious spreadsheets on a phone? Get a life
“we can survive just fine without using a single one of Microsoft’s bloated, unimaginative products, thank you very much”
That is so flippin’ true. Happily Microsoft-free for over 15 years now.
You don’t need a full office suite on a phone. That’s just such a stupid comment from Microsoft. As MDN said, that’s all they’ve got to say.
AFAIK, the phone runs a cutdown version of the OS and the apps are Cocoa apps. Maybe it doesn’t even run Carbon apps, which Office is. And even if it did, why would you want to install all that crap on a phone?
Why would Apple even bother trying to support a useless irrelevance like that? Office is fine on a PC, but no one in his right mind is going to be editing a spreadsheet or writing Office macros on a phone.
If you get emailed a simple RTF or Word document, there’ll doubtless be a viewer for that. TextEdit, anyone?
And if you really want to write an office document, since there’s a full-blown browser with JavaScript support on there – the first phone in the world to offer that – why wouldn’t you use Google docs?
http://www.google.com/google-d-s/intl/en/tour1.html
“Or at least runtime java.”
ChrissyOne, that was seriously funny! Uncle!
Why would a Microsoft exec fling the usual FUD at the Apple iPhone?
Because he ran out of poo. Welcome to the monkey house.
The thing people don’t get is that Apple products are first about experience and second about features. The truly revolutionary thing about the iPhone is NOT its feature list. It is the way the interface works. The simple, intuitive way you get things done. This is something sorely missed in cell phone market: a product designed with the user in mind. Instead we have of a bunch of features and functions glued together and stuffed into some electronics.
I didn’t switch from a 200MHz Vectra to a 75MHz Performa because of the feature list. I switched because I got work done on the Performa and fought with the Vectra. I guarantee that old Vectra had a much more impressive feature list than any Performa.
Another point. Why Cingular/AT&T? I’m willing to bet Apple went with the carrier who had the best road map, not the best current offering. I’ve read a few places where Cingular is in the midst of a very large upgrade to their infrastructure. I’ve seen significant recent improvements to service where I live (anecdotal, I know), and doubt I’m alone. Apple is more interested in what Cingular is doing, not what they have.
These are the old days. The all or nothing days. They’re back! There’s no choices left and I’m ready for war!
Marv, Sin City.
MS Office is dead. I prefer to use Google Docs for most things nowadays.
My only wish for this device other than the long list of great features to date, is that it would support Lotus Domino on the back end. Blackberry has a sync with it, and that’s why it’s successful in the business world, despite not being able to install leaky MS apps.