Verizon sends staff ‘iWhatever’ memo

57 Comments

“The Thursday letter to Verizon Wireless employees from Chief Operating Officer Jack Plating is delicately titled ‘iWhatever.’ In it, Plating acknowledges the incessant iPhone hype and assures employees that AT&T can’t match Verizon’s service, choice of phones and extras, like music,” Erica Ogg reports for CNET.

Ogg reports, “In his pep talk, he calls AT&T’s iPhone “yet another attempt to stay competitive with us,” but adds that he’s ‘not ready to dismiss the impact of the iPhone’ on Verizon. Moreover, he says, AT&T’s data network speeds are half that of Verizon’s.”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “hotinplaya” for the heads up.]
The future golden parachutist really ought to be sending them the link to
WeUsedToHaveJobsButOurIncompetentLeadershipFailedToUnderstandTheSignificanceOfiPhone.com.

Related articles:
Verizon CEO: We don’t need no stinkin’ iPhones – June 20, 2007
How Verizon blew the Apple iPhone deal – January 29, 2007

57 Comments

  7. So if you’ve decided you’re too cool for the iPhone, or you refuse to leave Verizon for AT&T, you’ll be pleased to know that Verizon has you covered. Verizon stores and kiosks will stay open until 9 p.m. And you can be sure these stores won’t have a line.

    Reply

  11. Hi ChrissyOne,

    while you are taking those fantastic pics, do you have a place in line, and are you buying 1 or 2

    Don’t mean to bug, I am sitting here in Mexico, and my plan is to find American TV at 6:00pm to watch the coverage:(

    Reply

  14. You can’t appreciate the professional response until you’ve taken a few cues from Mr. Steve Ballmer. You may think you know what it means to be a stage freak, or chair screaming lunatic but until you can send out a memo that sums it all with a simple fsck you then you’re an amateur.

    Reply

  15. @ hotinplaya

    Not in line, I just stopped by before work. I’m heading back over there at 3:30. I plan on buying only 1 tonight, I’ll leave the opportunism to others (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

    -c

    Reply

  19. This is quite simply a case of ego. Verizon knew it was catching up to Cingular in subscribers, and felt it did not need to bow to any of Apple’s iPhone demands, as it would not stop Verizon from toppling ATT as the number one service provider.

    The ego was wrong – imagine that. By the year’s end, count on Apple having moved around 6 million iPhones, and about a million+ coming from Verizon.

    While that may not seem like a lot, these customers are from the high end, with high end monthly’s and people willing to pay at least something for the phone. Those cash cow consumers will have moved over to ATT and iPhone.

    Verizon plans on launching its US version of the Prada phone to counter, which it will not. It will be over-priced for the value and iPhone-wanna-be it is, and will not steer many away from iPhone, it’s that simple.

    Verizon’s shareholders and board should be closely re-examining why they did not partner with Apple, and they had better get past “Because we had our own music service” type crap and figure out why it didn’t make sense in aiding to dominate the carrier business. But uh, they won’t and there you go.

    Reply

  21. Hey, does anybody know whether Apple.com’s store will start selling the iPhone at 6p ET or PT? I don’t think I saw it mentioned anywhere.

    Thanks! ” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” />

    Reply

  24. I’ll guarantee you that this Verizon loser is/was a PC-centric nimrod, which is one of the reasons he “just didn’t get it”. Well, I suspect now he is quite nervous, and I also suspect that he is probably finally “getting it” – when it’s too late.

    Reply

  26. He reminds me of these “industry analysts” who say things like this (these are direct quotes from the self-proclaimed “experts”):
    __________________________

    “Industry analysts say there is one great unknown about the launch which is whether iPhone owners, familiar with cellphone buttons, will like adapting to a touch-screen.

    Analysts are divided on whether Apple’s “smart” cell phone will be an industry-changing device or be too expensive to compete with other smart phones such as Research in Motion’s BlackBerry, which has gained a loyal following among executives.”
    __________________________

    Would anyone care to tell me when any of these so-called industry analysts have ever created *anything* worthwhile. I think Jobs & Co. have a little bit stronger of a track record in this regard.

    Reply

  28. Thanks for the reply. I had also seen the number but never the timezone. I’m gonna wait and see whether they’ll have it up in 40min to see how long it would take them to ship it to me. If it doesn’t happen or it takes too long, I guess I’ll have to go out and stand in line soon! 😀

    Reply

  29. Verizon CEO to employees:
    I am really sorry that my pride cost
    Verizon nothing short of a billion dollars over the next couple of years. But it’s ok, we still have better service because we have much less customers.
    Verizon…you are a carrier…that’s all.
    You passed on an escalating revolutionary game-changing product that you needed to become a revolutionary game-changing carrier.
    You are dependent on hardware, and the iPhone was that hardware.
    iWhatever is pure denial. Start the spiral

    Reply

  30. Well I will be one Verizon customer looking for an iPhone. For what I was paying per month just for the data service from Verizon (almost $50!) I could have a iphone plan – data and voice! In fact I am considering ending my contract early. Even with the penalty and the cost of the iphone I would be ahead money wise before the end of the contract with AT&T

    That coupled with the awful experience I have had with this POS Treo is more than enough reason to switch to AT&T and the iphone.

    That giant sucking sound you hear will be the vacuum left at Verizon stores as people leave them in droves to get an iPhone.

    Reply

  34. They should sack that CEO for turning down the iPhone deal.

    It’s gota be one of the worst business decisions since the guy who thought the Beatles were crap and told them to fsck off…

    …and we all know the success story there!

    Reply

  35. Blackfriars quoted someone <http://www.blackfriarsinc.com/blog&gt; who gets it… people hate their phones and they hate their phone company. Since most people don’t use AT&T, most people don’t hate AT&T (at least yet)…

    It is the exact opposite of astroturf when one product demo, a half dozen press releases and a couple of weeks of low-key how to ads can generate this kind of frenzy.

    The other thing that makes me laugh is when all these tards talk about their “music phones” and–even better–“music capable phones”. The iphone is a lot more, of course, but even on that front… it’s not a “music phone”– it’s a freaking iPod. Have you not heard of it? The one with higher prices and a 70% market share…

    Sadly I can’t justify the early termination charges on 2 phone contracts … which, of course, just makes me hate my phone company more.

    Reply

  38. > This moron is chiming on about AT&T when it’s Apple he should be worried about!

    That’s the other shoe yet to drop. Most of the black eyes that
    Apple has dished out so far are to the regular wintel hegemony, the telecom’s are just starting to size up the ‘New Kid’. Too woo!

    Reply

  39. Yes, RIM is up. Merrill Lynch was positive on RIM because they erroneously think that the iPhone will raise all the boats in the water. Plus which, RIM posted a 70% profit increase. Therefore, the upswing.

    But still, the iPhone will crush the Dingleberry.

    Reply

  42. An infantile e-mail – not what I’d expect from the head of one of the world’s biggest telecom companies. A true corporate leader should be able to give credit where credit is due to your competitors, while still defending your own company’s choices. THere was an exec at Boeing – I forget his name – who comes to mind. He praised Airbus’ A380 as an amazing technical achievement, but also stated, without resorting to childish invective, his belief that Boeing was making a more savvy choice in building the 787. Graciousness and maturity are rare qualities in the boardroom. Reeks of insecurity.

    Reply

  44. I’m glad Verizon didn’t get the exclusive contract for the iPhone. Woulda sucked for me since Verizon doesn’t cover anywhere remotely close to me. Everything for a 100 mile radius is either AT&T, Sprint or Alltel. Sure, I coulda roamed off Alltel, but Verizon won’t sell a phone to someone who spends most of their time roaming.

    Reply

  45. “assures employees that AT&T can’t match Verizon’s service, choice of phones and extras, like music”

    Read that again:
    “can’t match Verizon’s choice of phones and music”

    RAOFL
    Except if the customer wants an iPhone & iTunes.

    Reply

  47. “Sadly I can’t justify the early termination charges on 2 phone contracts … which, of course, just makes me hate my phone company more.”

    🙁

    Same boat…except I have 4 phones. Actually, I think one is up so it would only be $175 x 3!!.

    Reply

  49. Basically what this Verizon guy did was the equivalent of if Jessica Alba came to you and said “I want to have raunchy all night sex with you for years to come, but my only condition is that you take me out to a nice restaurant once a week.”

    But you’ll be damned if you let any set the terms for you, so you balk. And now you look across the street and she’s over there undressing in front of your neighbor, who is barely half as good looking as you, and they’re about to do the nasty.

    You see how good she looks and you wonder, “Would it have been so bad to take her to a nice restaurant once a week. I mean, I can’t believe how she looks naked. She’s unbelievable. And now this other guy is going to enjoy those pleasures I could have had.”

    But to save face to your buddies, you say, “Well it doesn’t matter anyway, cuz my blowup doll is looking pretty good.”

    Reply

  50. Someone wrote on John Gruber’s :

    It hurts to live in South Dakota in the USA today… where there’s no AT&T network in sight!! Sprint and Verizon and whoever bought Cellular One rule the roost in the Northern Great Plains….. A R G H !!!!!

    Unfortunately, Verizon has a point. Without network coverage, the iPhone makes fore a very pretty paperweight. Until AT&T does some mega-expansion, a lot of people in the US will not be able to make use of Apple’s superb technology breakthrough, even if sold by BestBuy.

    As for Wi-Fi, it doesn’t make sense for me to hang around the airport and Barnes & Noble just to make a phone call.

    BWAHHHHAAAHAAAA!

    Reply

  52. It’s like the left-out kids huddling around a dying campfire, with someone saying “Look we can have fun too!”.

    What better way to validate your competition, than to give your idle employees a pep talk during a major industry product launch?

    Reply

  53. it’s funny. if you go to the wikipedia page for verizon, there isn’t a single mention of the word ‘iPhone.” hmmm….

    sounds like it needs to be updated.

    at&t sucks, but my service with verizon was truly crappy. they ripped me a new one on minutes constantly and there were dropped calls all the time. i’ll deal with at&t until we can break the phone companies of charging for minutes.

    Reply

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