“Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. may participate in the government’s project to supply as much as 15 million tablet computers for school children over four years, state-owned Anatolia news agency said, citing Turkish Trade Minister Zafer Caglayan,” Ercan Ersoy reports for Bloomberg.
“Apple officials told Caglayan during his visit to the U.S. that the Cupertino, California-based maker of smart devices may also decide to use some Turkish manufacturers to make some peripheral equipment such as covers, earphones for its iPad and iPhone models, Caglayan said at a news conference with Turkish reporters in Seattle, according to the Ankara-based agency,” Ersoy reports. “The winner of the government-funded project will have to produce the tablets in Turkey, Industry Minister Nihat Ergun said July 13.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This sounds like a “who can do the most for Turkey” contest, not a “what’s the best tablet for Turkish students” endeavor.
If it is, to see who can do the most for Turkey, then Microsoft has got it, hands down.
But, if it’s just tablet sales? Apple and it wasn’t even close.
Wouldn’t Microsoft need to produce a “tablet” first, before supplying them? Oh, Microsoft says they misunderstood the project; they thought Turkey wanted 15 million (big ass) “tables.”
Perhaps it was the accented English… MS likely thought the said “table-ettes”. Kind of a Big Ass Table Lite. “Tablettes… sure we can do that! In fact we’ve been working on them for years! Ya want chairs with that?”
Microsoft no doubt has plenty of chairs to “throw” into the deal… 🙂
I think Microsoft misunderstood and thought they wanted turkeys for computers (tablet or otherwise) before they put their hands up.
“This sounds like a “who can do the most for Turkey” contest, not a “what’s the best tablet for Turkish students” endeavor.”
To avoid that, Apple and Microsoft have to agree to a base price (for the bid), and let the Turkish agency decide what’s the best device.
Those dickheads in Turkey better prepare themselves to fly a turkey for a tablet then. When nationalistic fervor takes over rational decision making you get lame ducks. No wonder the EU told these dickheads to keep the hell out. This idiot should spend a stint in a Turkish prison to sort his shit out.
@objectional
Would it hurt you to maybe develop a more balanced world view and stop spewing on a nation I guess you’ve never visited, know nothing about and whose culture and traditions make you and your foul mouthed comment, the redkneck dickhead of the day.
Grow up. Better still, stay in the backwoods with all the other wild dogs.
No, and piss off out of my comment thread dick face.
Your cursing is a sign of your level of education,,,,, your inability to construct a grammatically correct sentence along with your disdain for anything you can’t comprehend.
Your words don’t anger me, but rather make me feel sorry for your pathetic existence. Life has has not been good to you. I’m sorry for that and hope things change for you in the future. Good luck.
I couldn’t care less what you thought. You existence or lack thereof does not impact my wellbeing. Neither do I need to seek your approval for every post I make.
Well Jesus H. Fucking Christ, it’s good that the lack of others approval isn’t something that you need, because I’m guessing you haven’t gotten it since your mother slapped your stupid ass to the ground. Why do YOU need to be the, what’s the technical term you used . . . oh yeah, dick face?
Do I give a shit what you say? No. So just shut the fuck up yeah.
Whats your problem man? Life is too short to be pissed all the time. Cheer up,,, its easier to be nice then not nice.
How does it feel to go through life with so much hatred?
Except that the EU haven’t refused Turkey’s entry to the Union at all. They are regarded as a membership candidate and negotiations regarding their full entry are ongoing. If it weren’t for the resistance from Greece and Cyprus they’d probably already have a joining date agreed.
There is no doubt in my mind that this will go Microsoft’s way, as MS is expert in greasing the correct wheels and padding the critical envelopes.
Apple has a fairly deep aversion towards underhanded dealing (we give you free WiFi, you give us the contract). Not to mention that it is fairly difficult to imagine Apple setting up the entire manufacturing facility for an iPad in Turkey, just so that they could win a modest contract.
I’m not sure why Apple even bothers competing for this.
Predrag, weren’t you a regular back in the day on Raging Bull? DNTK or CIO boards?
Apple hasn’t said it will bid, and they should not. Turkey’s long experience in the contract electronics assembly industry should be Apple’s fist clue. And for 15,000 iPads! That will be a rounding error in Apple’s production figures.
The original source states it is for 15 MILLION tablets-this would at the minimum $7 Billion. This is a huge contract.
Not a big contract, to be sure. But I think Apple should still compete on principle, and offer the iPad on its own merits, minus the sweeteners.
Yeah, greasing the correct wheels, is very accurately put. They do it all over the place. Like in the past, when Bill Gates cuddled up with so many ministers and presidents, we’ll see Steve Ballmer do the same in Turkey, I am telling you. Hope someone also will throw a pie at him, and make a hit !
Every nickel helps the bottom line.
Sounds like a turkey to me…
What I was thinking.
“The winner of the government-funded project will have to produce the tablets in Turkey, Industry Minister Nihat Ergun said July 13.”
Is this dude serious? Well, at least we are not the only country with freak’n retards appointed to positions so they can pull decision out their a$$’s. My guess is the citizens of Turkey could be in for a very long wait.
Good luck citizens of Turkey.
Foxconn is opening a factory in Brazil to produce Apple products there. Why not Turkey as well?
Anything to reduce our trade imbalance with China is an excellent plan.
If they go with Microsoft, does that make them Turkish Daffy?
…what a load of Istanbulshit.
Best comment of the day.
Agreed.
I don’t believe Apple will get involved in this political mess. Supply can’t keep up with demand as things are now.
So I’m guessing Turkey will get “turkey” tablets ( not IPads ) !
Steve Jobs said when addressing enterprise sales that Apple doesn’t like them because ‘the purchaser is not the end user’ i.e the people who buy them often make sucky decisions as it’s not their money and they are not the ones that have to use the device.
this goes double for SOME government sales.
I’ve done contract work for a government dept. for a decade and I can tell you they make the dumbest weirdest decisions. In that time the politically appointed head of the dept has changed over 10 times ( one day it’s guy from fisheries running it, another day a guy from legal or a guy transferred from transport etc).
The people who buy the tablets for turkey probably won’t be around to take responsibility if they buy MS tablets and they fall apart, probably he/she would be out of power or transferred to run the army or something.
(side note: some Singapore high schools are already testing out iPads. Guess it’s easier to write chinese on them than type them on a keyboard, because of this tablets will be big in education in Asia )
He expects a finishing production line will get set up in Turkey for 15MM guaranteed sales — probably at a discount?
This only makes sense if the manufacturer (MSFT, AAPL, etc) already had plans for a production facility somewhere in EMEA in the near future. 15MM guaranteed sales is a sweetener for what they were already planning to do, and may steal a move on another country.
Absent that, though, by itself it is not a big enough incentive.
Turkey will get “turkey” tablets ( not IPads ) !
Microsoft or Android is good enough for any Muslim nation.
Microsoft tablets are similar to riding a Camel in the age of modern mobile technology from Apple.
Argh, well, ok, I get your point.
However, as capitalism works, the one with most money can buy the best stuff; there are many muslim nations that have lots of money, and for them, only the best is good enough. And probably (don’t want to offend anybody) as the US and EU get poorer; regarding capitalist principles, the US would have to be happy not with a camel but with a donkey (no political pun intended). That’s not to say I like islamist Saudi Arabia or communist China more than the US, but they are at the moment financially more successful, so they maybe deserve a camel, but still they can buy a sportscar.
BTW, even there are a lot of muslims in Turkey, but it’s not “a Muslim country”. The government is not theocratical; they fight Islamist groups and are a strong friend of the US; unlike other nations of the region. Of course, there are many medieval-minded religious people in the countryside, but at the cities (Istambul especially), there is a western modern spirit like in any other European country…
@ Tablet Guy
What a pea brained comment!
Tablet Guy likes to pontificate.
What complete a utter sad little fucker he is.
This suggests a name for the Microsoft Tablet! The Turkey!
The MicroTurkey!
As in MicroTurkey Tablet MTT. 😉
MS proudly introduces The Giblet™…
Hahahaha FUNNY!!!
Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing Apple set up some manufacturing outside of China. I know they are working on something Brazil. Why not Turkey? I know it is totally impractical, and this single contract doesn’t make it worth it alone, but in principle, to reduce some reliance on Chinese manufacturing would be good. Shorter shipments to supply European countries. Oh, and here’s a thought, how about building some manufacturing plants in the good ol’ USA?
The Brazilian plant I think will turn out to be a total dud. There’s a lot of talk about it but Foxconn isn’t stupid enough to throw $1.2 billion into a sinkhole. Same with Turkey. The cost of logistics including freight and storage represents less than 1% of the cost of manufacture.
The supply chain is located predominantly in Asia, residing in countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan and of course China. So the cost of logistics of the parts themselves will be greater than shipping the finished article to Turkey.
15 million tablets over 4 years is a shade under 4 million tablets a year. Apple sells that in month. What happens when the contract is fulfilled after 4 years? Do you dismantle the plant because the economics will have tilted the scales completely the other way as you’ll have a 4 million unit hole to fill. Completely illogical.
That’s why government bureaucrats should shut their pie hole and not try to direct industries without accompanying incentives, be they a trained labor force, tax breaks or other economic benefits that outweigh the cost of operating the plant.
Just a hint: try not to comment too much on areas you don’t know much about:
http://www.itp.net/584077-foxconn-begins-pc-production-in-turkey
Published March 7, 2011
Electronics components manufacturer Foxconn has begun production of PCs in Turkey.
Try not to associate PCs with iPads because that just shows your ignorance yeah.
It may turn out that Turkey would be happy with an Apple store.
Negotiations start at one place and often end in a very different place.
Imagine how popular this official would be if word got around that Turkey was getting 15 million iPads, but the official buys MS tablets instead.
This guy would have to leave the country!
@DaveWrite you are correct. Not only are those issues staring the winner in the face, but in the past, when doing business with Turkey, I have never personally run into a more racist, more sexist, more corrupt society. I had business people tell me flat out that they could not deal with me or my associate because I am black and she is a woman. We literally had to go hire white people to front for us so that we could fulfill contractual obligations. I have run into similar backwater thinking in Pakistan and India. Maybe I’d suck it up to move 15 million tablets, but I sure wouldn’t bend over backwards again. I’d be proud if Apple said, “Nah, not interested.”
Interesting… have you had any dealing with the Arab countries to the south and southeast of Turkey? If you found Turkey racist, sexist and corrupt, I would imagine that the other less-modern Middle East countries might be much worse.