“This is exactly why I beat the drum so hard in articles such as Why Does Apple Let That Dump Walmart Discount iPhones?” Rocco Pendola writes for TheStreet.
“I am going to rip Tim Cook because, for as great of a job as he has done lately, he deserves to get ripped again — endlessly, relentlessly — on this particular issue,” Pendola writes. “Best Buy, somehow, gets clearance from Apple to knock $50 off of the price of an iPhone 5c. How Best Buy organizes that promotion — with a gift card or whatever — isn’t material to the story. Best Buy should not have the ability to run these types of promotions in the first place.”
“It’s bad enough that Apple lets Best Buy and other retailers sell its products. It’s even worse that Apple permits these guys to effectively slum their products and dilute the brand. it means nothing to Apple’s bottom line because, most likely, Best Buy or Wal-Mart or whoever eats the cost of the sale or assumes the risk in the promotion; however, it means something to Apple’s image,” Pendola writes. “While you can’t collude to fix prices, you can use suggested and minimum retail prices for the folks you allow to distribute your goods.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “I’m going to rip Tim Cook because…” it’s all I know how to do. Hopefully, it will take the hit-whores at TheStreet a long time to figure out that I keep submitting the same article every week.
Walmart et al. used Apple’s iPhone 5 as a loss leader last year, Tim Cook-hating one-trick pony.
The catastrophic effect of that was Apple assuming the throne of world’s most valuable brand (quel dommage!) and selling the most smartphones ever sold in three days (iPhone 5c and 5s), breaking their own record (iPhone 5) which broke their own record (iPhone 4s) which broke their own record (iPhone 3GS) which broke their own record (iPhone 3G) which broke their own original record (iPhone).
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “chris” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Loss leader: Best Buy drops the price of iPhone 5c to $50 – October 4, 2013
Best Buy complains to U.S. attorneys general, claims Walmart’s Christmas iPhone 5 loss leader cost it profits – January 4, 2013
Walmart offering Apple iPhone 5 for $127, iPhone 4S for $47, iPad (4th gen.) for $399 – December 14, 2012
I warned you that this piece of s… Goes positive and then negative on Apple constantly. Page views. I allready told him that rhere is a reason why Tim has been chosen to lead the greatest company on earth and why he scrambles for page views.
Historically so.
Why do I get the feeling that Pendola is clueless?
Guess he thinks the “unclean” should not be allowed to own Apple products. Idiot. Many Walmart shoppers have money. They are just frugal and know the value of iPhone. Besidies they are a lot of communities in the hinterlands where Walmart is the only meaningful retailer for miles.
FIRE Tim Cook!
Tu eres un pendejo Pendola! You are an asshole Pendola! You should just change your last name to Pendejo.
Yes… change it to… Pendejola.
There you go!
So how come none of you have any defense against Pendola’s point? From a brand management perspective, he is absolutely correct. Apple’s decision to allow a couple retailers to undercut its own retail store prices makes no sense whatsoever.
… and it’s doubly bad that Apple feels the need to slash prices on newly released products. Maybe those colorful 5c phones weren’t delivering what the market wanted after all?
No matter what, it is poor form to attack the messenger when you don’t even have the ability to address the issue. Stop the haterade and answer the challenge. Why do you think this latest move by Cook is in any way good for Apple?
Mike (aka son of Pendola),
Consider reading the comments under Pendula’s article. Many many commenters give a good comeback to the article. Pendola is making The Street look like the rag financial site that it really is.
And Mike, since we know you are anti Cook ….. just because…. well we also understand your direction. But consider your words. You said “Apple feels the need”…. check the Apple store. its prices are not slashed, that is coming from Walmart and Best Buy who are trying to attract customers.
When the messenger is the problem and the message just a trolling effort for page hits, well you get what you asked for.
Just saying.
Sad but true. He’s a hit whore. But seems to be popular here when he’s writing good things about Apple. Guess what, he’s a fucking hit whore then too. And everyone here read his article didn’t they?
And Pendola has done what in business to become an authority to judge the CEO of the most successful company in the world? Does he have some special insight into the negotiations of Apple or is he just spouting off to grab attention from the hungry anti-Apple crowds. Desperate times for them.
He’s a Santa Monica beach bum.
If the pundits ran Apple, there would have been no Bondi Blue iMac, no iPod, no iTunes, no MacBook Air, no iPhone, no iPad, no Mac Pro, no who knows what else, and by now, no Apple.
If Carl Icahn ran Apple…
But on the other hand, if the pundits had been running Apple, there would have been Apple netbooks.
Looks like we had a lucky escape there.
Pot. Kettle.
Again, WS shysters want Cook out and replaced by a sculley type. The shysters believe that they are owed the money apple is hoarding. They want all of that turned over to them.
The drumbeat will continue for Cook’s replacement. Cook should be like SJ and screw them. No buybacks, instead have dividends equivalent to the buybacks plus stock split of 10 to 1.
Steve would probably do this with a raised finger.
Not sure I understand this. If Cook or Steve wanted to stick it to Wall Street, wouldn’t they elminate all dividends and put all their money into buying back the stock ?
Also, as far as splitting the stock, can someone explain what effect that has in terms of the market ? I thought at one point someone said something about splitting the stock makes it easier for traders to buy options (and thus easier to manipulate). Can anyone clarify ?
And I would see the same point for Samsung. Their products are sold and given away at little roving carts in five packs. Yet, has the CEO been ripped for this? The only devalued product is “The Street,” that should be ripped and tarred with a healthy dose of feathers for being so stupid. The Street needs to get a brain cell so it can collectedly have a pair.
The CEO’s job in essence is to tease the best out of the employees and the only way to do that in an organisation like Apple is if the employees think you’re a visionary, not a caretaker that is clueless about what the future holds.
I’ll cite two examples. Scott Forstall and Ron Johnson. Scott under Steve Jobs was a producer, a five star performer that designed and managed the development of iPhone OS (the original iOS 1) which then morphed into iOS 6. Scott certainly had Steve’s seal of approval and I mean that in a big way, not in a small way. Scott has a little of Steve’s abrasiveness but in a forward thinking organisation like Apple, that is a good thing. Like dousing gasoline over a fire, a certain amount of hard charging, hard driving brilliance is necessary to drive the organisation forward towards turns in the technology superhighway that cannot be seen by mere mortals.
Ron Johnson worked under Steve Jobs quietly and efficiently for more than 10 years bringing out new and refreshing changes to the Apple store. Concepts like the Genius Bar was his.
When Cook comes in the first thing that Ron does is tender his resignation. Then Cook appoints a known failure like Browett to run the retail division. And if this debacle weren’t enough Cook forces Scott out of Apple because that pansy Ive couldn’t work with him.
Now that artsy fartsy Ive, the pansy of Cupertino has taken over the development of iOS 7, it looks like the dreck that my dog hurled out after eating a particularly bad steak. The steak that was iOS 7 was cooked for Cook by Scott, but hurled out of the fetid reaches of Ive’s fevered imagination.
I rest my case.
I think it’s really a downright shame for all of us that you weren’t available to provide your incredible insights in a manner more befitting your station in life. I mean, why don’t you have the ear of Tim Cook directly? What is wrong with this picture? /s
Browett was the wrong decision, but Forstall was the right one.
iOS 7 was weird at first, but a full screen of app icons no longer takes me five minutes to comprehend. This simplicity makes things more efficient.
The reality is that Tim has been running this organization for at least 5 years, if not longer. Ive now has Jobs-like control and freedom within the organization, and the other executives are just as good as they’ve ever been.
Is the term “pansy” politically correct in these times?
Clueless, you certainly are befitting your name.
Ron Johnson left Apple because JCPenny offered him the CEOship. Most executives dream of running a major company their way, and he took the shot. Had nothing to do with Tim Cook, except maybe that Johnson understood he was not going to move up to Apple’s CEO anytime soon.
Forstall wasn’t some wunderkind, he had a better idea for iOS than the iPod OS becoming the iPhone’s OS. The fact is one of the primary reasons Forstall won the competition is because no one at Apple could figure out a way to make the click wheel efficiently dial a telephone number and there was no other input for iPod OS.
And how conveniently you forget Forstall’s Apple Maps debacle. He didn’t have it ready to go in time, and Apple suffered due to his “five star perform[ance]”.
Finally, Ive has been designing all things Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad for a long, long time. Just now this award-winning and endlessly copied designer is “artsy fartsy”? OK, whatever.
I think Samsung and Dell products may be more to your liking. Enjoy.
Oh, dumb fuck again. Someone bitchslap that asswipe for me.
Just go away. You show no redeeming qualities.
Wow, just insane, hilariously insane. No one thinks Apple is cheap because you can get a deal at Walmart or Best Buy. Customers are rejoicing that these stores are giving them a better deal. Is Samsung, HTC, or any other phone maker considered to be “slumming it” for selling their phones with deals at these stores as well?
People just love to hate Apple. Seems the best way to get page views, which is the problem with journalism these days. Nobody wants to pay for good journalism in this digital age so we are left with whatever will gets page views, for them to make money from advertisers, so we don’t have to pay for it. An unfortunate side-effect that I hope can be alleviated some day.
Pendola has sand in his vagina.
It’s like train spotting… Apple Hating… Where’s the clubhouse?
Steve Jobs was strict about retail price, times have changed and Apple is today a world power (like it or not), that has different marketing strategies and objectives ,to fit the times.
Steve envisioned and commissioned the monumental spaceship to headquarter the Apple empire, knowing exactly what it’s mission is and who was best suited to would steward it into it’s future.
Tim’s pretty amazing with numbers. Just cause it don’t make sense now, don’t mean much. Nobody of these market analists ever get anything Apple does or it’s pricing strategies (stores will kill them…), ever, till it’s obvious.
Daaaaaa daaaa daaaaa , da, ok ok settle down here. Let’s think a little bit here – daaaa daaaa da. Ok here we go, has it ever crossed your fukin little be rain that this is Apples strategy for the 5c?
I am not a retail pricing expert but the cuts are on which phone???? Yes the 5c, soooooo what about the 5s?????? Hmmm if you dish bag logic holds these very same retailers would be bidding down the 5s as well but that’s not happening, whyyyyyy, because Apple won’t let them.
Imagine what he would have said had Apple introduced the Wall Street cheaper iPhone.
Rocco Pendola is a filthy, slovenly, unkempt, dirt bag, literally.
The low priced retailers are giving Wall Street what they want, a low priced quality smartphone for the frugal and indigent.
This is exactly what Samsung does with it’s Galaxy models. Notice how the 5C is getting discounted and not the 5S. Even grey market prices for the 5 remain sky high. This is a non-issue.
Steve Jobs would have never let Apple produce that silly little Mac Pro “trash can” of a computer.
Maybe the “form over function” design of the new Mac Pro is a ‘fabulous’ thing, but I don’t get it.
What’s to get? It’s designed to use external, thunderbolt, drives so it doesn’t need to be a huge noisy box. I had one of those – it was like a jet fighter under the desk, especially in warm weather when the fans would ramp themselves up. Like many other users, i never filled the drive bays or added extra cards so the huge box was just a nuisance. The life of a high end machine is 2-3 years if you buy it for performance reasons. I will buy the new Mac Pro for film editing – in 3 years time I will buy a replacement because the world will have moved beyond HD and more grunt will be required.
Some people will buy this box for use as a server – in the film world it will be perfect as a network rendering machine which requires grunt and memory but little disk.
The big cost will be drives, but they will largely come from third parties.
The shape is designed to provide maximum cooling with minimum fans. No jet fighter noises!
It’s a low volume market and the box is targeted carefully at users who will spend the dollars to get a solution which fits their needs. You may not fall into this target market, hence you “don’t get it” because this machine is not designed for you.
Steve loved the G4 Cube. While it was a great little computer that just ran and ran, it’s form was much like the new Mac Pro.
That “trash-can” Mac Pro might have been part of Steve Jobs product pipeline. You don’t know that for sure. Not every product Steve produced was perfect. We tend to gloss over Steve’s misses possibly because there weren’t that many.
However, you are being unfair because it hasn’t even come to market yet and you’re saying it won’t be a success. It’s far too early to tell. I’d certainly buy it because it would serve my needs perfectly. I’m done with onboard hard drives and cards. I’m into NAS and Thunderbolt daisy-chaining. I’m only one person and can’t speak for the rest of the computer industry. Only time will determine if Apple has made a huge mistake with the new Mac Pro.
You’re right, Steve Jobs would NEVER have let anything like the Cube, G4 iMac, or Mac mini get produced . . . oh, wait, yes he did.
Steve Jobs was responsible for the Mac Pro design that the trash can replaced.
We’ll see. I’m betting the trash can is gone in a year.
Can someone point me to the author’s attack on the Samsung CEO as a result of Walmart slashing prices on the S4?
I thought not…
Who gives a damn whether an iPhone is bought from Apple retail, Best Buy or Walmart. The fact is that these promos put more iPhones in the hands of more customers. And isn’t market share supposed to be the biggest thing with these Wall Street bozos? You can’t have your cake and eat it too guys.
Besides, if Walmart and Best Buy are taking the hit for the $50 discounts, why does Apple care? It’s just that many more iPhones that are actually being sold and Apple gets their money just the same, so it’s a win-win for Apple either way.
It was also tough for PC technicians to admit that there was a better OS than Windows.
I understand that Tim Cook was not only hired by Jobs, but Cook was essentially running Apple years before Jobs strongly recommended Cook as CEO, Jobs spending his time innovating. And if such was the case, it’s not like Cook had no experience running a big, growing company like Apple before he officially became CEO.
Anybody who can impress Steve Jobs is fine by me.
People, Pendola is a former hockey sportscaster and has NO technical background at all. He is simply a writer who clueless Jim Cramer’s TheStreet allows to voice his opinion.
The question you should be asking is WHY DID MacDailyNews allow this article to be connected to their site. Someone should vet the source before giving it a linked forum here.
When Best Buy holds a sale in order to balance their inventories, they forgot to check with the fount of all knowledge, one Rocco Pendola. Then Mac Daily News gives him publicity so the rest of us have to listen to this drivel. But Pendola makes the Microsoft leadership look absolutely brilliant.
hit-whoring-yawn
Maybe intelligence from Walmart/Bestbuy suggested that they were having difficulty shifting Samsung phones – “With a slight price drop in the iP5C we could easily switch a not-so-sure Samsung buyer to Apple”.