During its fourth quarter conference call on Monday, Apple CEO Steve Jobs made some comments about RIM and its plans for a 7-inch tablet computer. RIM took exception to the comments and fired back at Steve.
[ad#Google Adsense 300×250 in story]Jobs said:
“We’ve now passed RIM. And I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future. They must move beyond their area of strength and comfort, into the unfamiliar territory of trying to become a software platform company. I think it’s going to be a challenge for them to create a competitive platform and to convince developers to create apps for yet a third software platform after iOS and Android. With 300,000 apps on Apple’s App Store, RIM has a high mountain ahead of them to climb.”
He said about the 7-inch tablet competitors:
“The seven-inch tablets are tweeners: too big to compete with a smartphone, and too small to compete with an iPad.”
Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of RIM shot back at Jobs with some numbers of his own on CrackBerry.com:
“For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field, we know that 7″ tablets will actually be a big portion of the market and we know that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web experience. We also know that while Apple’s attempt to control the ecosystem and maintain a closed platform may be good for Apple, developers want more options and customers want to fully access the overwhelming majority of web sites that use Flash. We think many customers are getting tired of being told what to think by Apple. And by the way, RIM has achieved record shipments for five consecutive quarters and recently shared guidance of 13.8 – 14.4 million BlackBerry smartphones for the current quarter. Apple’s preference to compare its September-ending quarter with RIM’s August-ending quarter doesn’t tell the whole story because it doesn’t take into account that industry demand in September is typically stronger than summer months, nor does it explain why Apple only shipped 8.4 million devices in its prior quarter and whether Apple’s Q4 results were padded by unfulfilled Q3 customer demand and channel orders. As usual, whether the subject is antennas, Flash or shipments, there is more to the story and sooner or later, even people inside the distortion field will begin to resent being told half a story.”
Clearly the iPad is very popular and Apple did its homework before releasing it. I guess we’ll see who is right when sales figures come in.
I totally agree the 7″ tablet is a ‘tweener and a non-starter.
Apple: Blah blah blah, blah blah.
RIM: Blah blah blah, blah blah.
Google: Blah blah blah, blah blah.
Adobe: boohoo
Except for maybe Apple, it’s hard for me to believe that a CEO knows what a customer wants when in many cases they have no idea.
I agree too. We’ll see how it sells.
“We think many customers are getting tired of being told what to think by Apple.”
Steve isn’t telling us what to think, you idiot. Sounds like a Freudian slip to me.
I agree.
But hereis the real deal. People at Apple sit around and say, “What would I want? What would be totally awesome and insanely cool?” And they make it into a device or software. And then they work on trying to make it even better. Once or twice a year, Steve and his cohorts get up and stage and say, “We’ve designed something at Apple we THINK you will find amazing” And voila they pull out an iPhone or iPad or itty-bitty-tiny-weeny iPod. And either people like it (a lot) or they don’t (envy and jealousy). And it doesn’t matter if everyone in the world entire universe like it just as long as enough (millions) people love it enough to make it hugely successful.
Why all the pissing an moaning from RIM? Or Google? Or Adobe? Or Microsoft? Because they don’t make things for the intrinsic value of it, for the love of making cool things. They make copies to try and grab market-share or to compete in a category or to make the most money. They’re suits. They don’t have imagination and creativity or a raison d’être other than money. I’m not saying that one shouldn’t try to make money selling iPhones or iPads but it should not rule you – there is a joy in making something awesome.
That’s the difference and you see it all around in the world with design, food, architecture, music – all kinds of examples of great achievement because it comes from the joy of doing it well and with enthusiasm.
Good post!
Did Balsillie rant?
Steve Jobs is an idiot.
Jobs is an idiot with billions, what have you, oops, I didn’t realized you are bill gates,.
“Distortion field” =p