Ivan Seidenberg is chairman and chief executive of Verizon Communications.
“Mr Seidenberg is adamant that Verizon Wireless is well placed to be one of the winners in the battle between companies for a big chunk of the revenue coming from the rising popularity of the mobile internet,” Andrew Parker and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson report for The Financial Times.
“He reserves his most acerbic remarks for Apple, the US technology company, and Steve Jobs, its chief executive,” Parker and Edgecliffe-Johnson report.
“Apple is credited with turning the mobile internet into a user-friendly reality with its much hyped iPhone, and Mr Jobs struck an exclusive network deal last year with AT&T for the handset,” Parker and Edgecliffe-Johnson report.
MacDailyNews Note: Please see related articles:
• iSuppli: iPhone used far more for Web surfing, email, and music than other mobile phones – April 03, 2008
• 85% of Apple Phone users browse mobile Web; iPhone is top device for news, information access – March 18, 2008
• Computerworld: Apple iPhone is breathtakingly ahead of its time – March 14, 2008
• Google sees post-Christmas surge in Apple iPhone traffic – January 14, 2008
“While describing Apple as a ‘great company,’ Mr Seidenberg highlights its small market share of global handset sales. He scoffs at suggestions that the iPhone is about to become a mass-market handset because Apple has accepted mobile operators’ pleas to subsidise it,” Parker and Edgecliffe-Johnson report.
“As handsets become banking tools and games controllers, he argues, mobile operators can up-end other companies’ business models. ‘It’s very cool. And Steve Jobs eventually will get old . . . I like our chances,'” Parker and Edgecliffe-Johnson report.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “AppleMania.info” for the heads up.]
Earth hath no idiocy like a wireless carrier scorned by Apple’s Steve Jobs.
Too stupid to comment on….
Doubtless Ivan Seidenberg will get old too.
What a creep.
;(
^ ^ ^ Agreed.
That’s not spin, that’s denial.
Can you hear me now??
“The smell of sweat on the morning. It smells like….victory.”
From Wikipedia – Ivan was born in 1946 and Steve in 1955 – so Ivan is himself older than dirt and already eligible for retirement.
He just got the Darwin Award for the corporate world.
Buster,
“Too stupid to comment on….”
No doubt, Buster, no doubt.
As the CEO of a major company, he should be ashamed that that’s his only response to a clear threat to his business. What he’s basically saying is “Yeah, they’ve got us beat now but we’re praying to God that once Steve leaves Apple years & years from now that we’ll still be around.”
As an investor, I ALWAYS stay away from a company who’s CEO has no respect for their competition, and in fact, trivializes the competitive product (and company) with comments like these. One should have great respect for the man and/or machine that can bring you down. These comments should be iCal’d, just like the idiotic comments of M.Dell, S.Ballmer, and the like…
If they’re in such a good position then why haven’t they done it already? Why don’t they have devices offering great internet experiences? If it’s so easy then why don’t they do it? Apple did if first go and are only getting better, they started from nothing with other companies already selling in large numbers and they’re already a credible threat. If your game plan revolves around hoping that the leader of your competition will die before his company destroys yours, then you’re one hell of a gambler.
Or an idiot.
Or both.
what a jerk.
reminds me of Retief “the Hater” Goosen.
I wonder if he hopes Jobs has his cancer return.
A hole!!!
how old is this Seidenberg guy….13? he’s got some growing up to do.
Hey, thanks Mr Seidenberg…that “get old” comment just majorly tapped into Steve Jobs “above all others” determination and he will now be iCEO of Apple until he is 99 years old…just to piss off that guys grandchildren, and for no other reason. Ask Michael Dell.
Mr Seidenberg was the first to talk to Apple about the iPhone and rejected the idea…which may go down as history’s biggest blunder and future generations will study about it. If I was Mr Seidenberg, I would just plain shut up. Even when a fool keeps his mouth shut, he is not perceived as a fool…paraphrased from the Bible.
The very definition of “dick”
Wow, when do they learn.
I stepped into a Verizon store at the mall the other day and asked the manager about the Instinct and the Dare. He didn’t even know what I was talking about.
If Verizon can’t even tell their managers about what is coming to try to compete with the iPod, then I will stay with AT&T;just as a matter of principle, regardless of who carries the iPhone.
Didn’t Ballmer say “i like our chances” when referring to his mobile solution vs the iPhone?
Can you smell the fear as we approach to July 11?
In my neighborhood Verizon has provided a very welcome fiber optic alternative to Comcast cable. But wireless data rates are going up as costs are coming down, and AT&T;now has 3G coverage in my area. So here’s another prospective customer for iPhone 2.0.
So Verizon’s business plan now rely on opposing CEOs retiring or dying?
Apple is growing it’s strong team day by day
the right way
STEVE or no STEVE we will kick your ass
The only thing I can think of is we hate you now more than dell
Earth hath no idiocy like a wireless carrier scorned by Apple’s Steve Jobs.
Obviously, MDN has never had to engage in what I’ll euphemistically call a dialogue with some of WinDroid idiots who have been hanging around this site recently, many of whom make an exhaustive case for late-term abortion.
the quote ‘It’s very cool. And Steve Jobs eventually will get old . . . I like our chances,’
Struck me as being very close to the now famous Uncle Fester (Steve Ballmer) quote “I like out strategy, I like it allot” referring to how he thought the iPhone couldn’t compete with windows mobile devices because it “didn’t have a keyboard” and thus didn’t “make a very good email device”
Hehe… it worked so well for Fester, he thought he would trot it out again (he isn’t even original) Will the stupidiy and hubris of these CEO’s ever cease. Guess not till the stockholders eject them and they get to exercise their golden parachute clause(s).