Orange CEO: Post-Jobs Apple’s easier to deal with

“Apple has [become] more flexible, paying more attention to everyone else, probably a little less arrogant than they used to be,” France Telecom-Orange CEO Stephane Richard said during a dinner with reporters in Barcelona on Monday. Characterizing today’s Apple with the same company under Steve Jobs, Richard said, “I think they are probably a little more under pressure, and it is quite nice.”



14 thoughts on “Orange CEO: Post-Jobs Apple’s easier to deal with”

  1. Since Steve passed the iPhone has lost some marketshare, so they can’t really demand much from the carriers.

  2. That’s a pretty sad state, since I can’t imagine Orange is trying to make changes that please customers.

  3. “Arrogant” has been used as a propaganda word against Apple for many years — what the speakers really meant was “uppity.” They were telling Apple to “know its place.” They were saying, “sure, your hippie computers are find for effete designers and artists maybe, but don’t pretend you can compete with real he-man technologists like Microsoft or HP, or a real consumer electronics company like Sony or LG!”

    That put-down is now out-of-date. Apple is on top. That is the only reason that this dude thinks Apple is less uppity than before. He’s looking up at Apple now, not down.

    The irony is that true arrogance is when you think you’re the best but you are not. That is almost all of Apple’s competitors. Arrogance is thinking that Walkman or Windows or Palm or BlackBerry can’t be replaced.

  4. Apple is under pressure:

    • to try and make enough products to meet their unprecedented demand

    • to try and build enough stores to contain the unprecedented number of Apple Store customers

    • to figure out a way to share their unprecedented cash reserves fairly with shareholders

    • to counter the endless crybaby PR from heartbroken generic technology nerds who want their lost he-man build-it-yourself computing industry back

  5. They don’t care about American marktetshare in the UK. And 2 some carriers have been dragging their feet on some iPhone features, to make money, and to potentially cut into some Apple sales. AT&T begrudingly rolled out FaceTime for cellular Also Tim is less aggressive than Steve, so that is most likely the difference.

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