News
iPhone facing challenges abroad
By Charles Starrett
Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Friday, November 30, 2007
News Category: iPhone
While the iPhone has officially launched in France, England, and Germany, Apple faces several challenges as it rolls out the device in other areas, reports Forbes. One of the main challenges, according to the report, is working out the network agreements in various regions. “If Apple is running into any impediments, it’s probably on the business side, making deals with operators,” says Charles Golvin, a principal analyst with Forrester Research. “As it looks abroad, Apple needs to do much more lengthy negotiations than its peers do.” The article suggests that while Apple has committed to an Asian release in 2008, it is also likely to target areas where its brand is popular. “One might imagine they would go after countries where they have found success with the iPod or the Mac,” says Golvin. Other analysts suggest the company may analyze iTunes usage when deciding where to head next.
Apart from network agreements, the device also faces compatibility problems in regions such as Japan and South Korea, and its lack of 3G capability may prove to be a problem in countries like Italy, Portugal, and Sweden. “We’ll look at the iPhone when it becomes 3G,” says Boris Nemsic, chief executive of Telekom Austria Group. Previously, AT&T chief Randall Stephenson said that a 3G iPhone will be available next year.
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1
Seems every IPhone or Mac article has this ominous tone, negative inuendos, slant…would like to see less yellow lournalism.
If you are a staunch Windows user, fine, don’t show it in every nay sayer article, please.
Posted by hpg on December 1, 2007 at 8:12 AM (PDT)
2
Article isn’t negative.
Apple chose to make iPhone a premium product and is trying to extract concessions from carriers all around the world.
The pitfall to this approach is limited distribution and possibly lower market share.
In contrast, RIMM is signing deals with every carrier in every country, getting the Blackberries to customers at lower prices.
No it’s not as nice as the iPhone but the Blackberry sells in higher volumes. For a lot of people, Blackberry is good enough, especially with the cost savings.
RIMM doesn’t have to try to get favorable revenue sharing deals because customers have to pay them for the Blackberry servers.
We’ll see how this plays out in the long run.
Posted by wco81 on December 1, 2007 at 12:05 PM (PDT)
3
The definition of insanity is to repeat, over & over, and action that has not previously worked. To divine Steve Jobs’ strategy, and/or to give him free advice, THAT is insanity. Weird.
Posted by Caesar Gott on December 2, 2007 at 12:02 PM (PDT)
4
Seems reality is too much for some people to tolerate. Not everyone is going to be happy with the manner than Apple does business. And certainly not everyone is willing to accept it lying down. The EU is already cracking down on the exclusive iPhone agreements, albeit the “penalty” in getting an unlocked phone is not exactly cheap.
I suppose it’s the price one pays for NOT wanting to feed the hungry mouths of Apple’s coffers each month when the cell phone bill comes due (shame on you unenlightened heathens for your blasphemy to the Profit Gods of Cupertino).
The REAL question is…if Apple can negotiate a cut of your iPhone’s monthly cell phone bill, will LG, Samsung, RIM, Nokia, Motorola and all the rest be far behind with their own hats in hand? How soon will it be after that happens that the carriers will want to jack up their rates as a result? After all, they can’t disappoint the shareholders with weaker quarterlies just because the hardware houses followed Apple’s lead and also demanded their pieces of the pie. After all, the iPhone isn’t the only phone that’s out in the wild that a carrier can do lucratively well by.
Posted by flatline response on December 4, 2007 at 7:01 AM (PDT)