Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone
News flash: Steve Jobs is aging
In an interview with Financial Times [registration required], Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg shared his company's answer to the iPhone's popularity"...As handsets become banking tools and games controllers, he argues, mobile operators can up-end other companies' business models. 'It's very cool. And Steve Jobs will eventually get old ... I like our chances.'"
Seidenberg, who is nine years Jobs' senior, has decided to wait for his rival to "age out" of his position. This reminds me of the skinny 7th grader who laments, "Someday my bully will notice girls and lose interest in stealing my lunch money."
Or, perhaps by "old" he meant "out-of-favor" as Daring Fireball suggests. Like Jelly Shoes and Jarts, the appeal of Apple with Jobs at the wheel will eventually fade. All Verizon must do is ride out the trend, like a lobster boat in a Nor'easter.
Forget innovation and hard work. The sit-and-wait method is a good one, too. It worked for Estragon and Vladimir.
[Via Cameron I/O]
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Howie Isaacks said 2:33PM on 6-29-2008
This guy is clearly an asshole. Instead of bitching and whining, why not release something better? If he's not going to do that then, he needs to shut the hell up and accept that his company turned Apple down and didn't want to carry the iPhone.
Reply
steve ballmer said 4:45PM on 6-29-2008
All Siedenberg has to do is stick with us! Our winMob7 will be finished in a few and all of the phone guys will trounce Apple and their stupid iPhumb!
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
Reply
G said 3:18PM on 6-29-2008
What a class-A tool.
Reply
Ozbone said 4:38PM on 6-29-2008
Yeah, just forget about what your customers want.
Reply
GP said 4:40PM on 6-29-2008
Yeah, just forget about what your customers want. If you ignore them long enough they'll quiet down.
Reply
Michael Rose said 4:47PM on 6-29-2008
+1 to Dave for "Waiting For Godot" reference.
Reply
Wheels said 5:39PM on 6-29-2008
This is the same strategy that America has had with the Castro regime for the past 48 years!
"Why it's.....BRILLIANT!"
Reply
Gene Cowan said 5:40PM on 6-29-2008
Well, the "sit and wait" strategy has served the Bell System and its descendants (hello, Verizon) very well over the last century. I mean, where are the innovations from them, really? I waited decades for the Bell Picture Phone, only to have Steve Jobs include it (for free!) on my laptop.
Reply
Squid7085 said 9:56PM on 6-29-2008
He's basically saying the iPhone is a Fad, Right? Well I seem to rememeber a good 5 or so years ago, and again 4 years ago, ect, ect. people saying similar things about the iPod, yet every year they sell more and more. Humm. Trend?
Reply
basscadet said 4:53AM on 6-30-2008
ipod is totally irrelevant to iphone. ipod was all alone back then and stormed an immature market (or more to the point: created one). Iphone is entering a competitive market with big players that respond very fast to any fad or trend.
Could it be that Verizon's CEO is referring to Steve Job's health issues in the past + his real skinny look nowadays? It sounds too macabre but maybe he's not referring to age but health situation...
GoatLogic said 10:55AM on 6-30-2008
Verizon as a company is so poorly managed it's amazing they are still in business. If the BOD were smart they'd axe Ivan and his entire executive staff. They have been wasting money on more vaporware and crap projects than I've ever laid eyes on in one company. They hide it by having different business entities fund these projects from year-to-year.
About the only one worth keeping would be John Stratton and his inner circle. They seem to understand the current market. If Verizon relies on Stratton there is hope. If not the Verizon collapse will make Enron look like a Pixar film.
Reply
Clinton Middleton said 12:09PM on 6-30-2008
Dear Verizon Wireless,
By turning down the most innovative new phone that has ever seen daylight you have failed to partner with a company that has revolutionized the industry. You have done a great disservice to yourselves and to your customer base. I fight chortles of laughter every time you lose a customer because between your shoddy customer service and your unwillingness to partner with Apple you certainly deserve to lose customers. You overcharge us for service, your stores lack support or empathy when problems arise and quite frankly I am surprised that you don't charge a cover charge to go into your stores. You have pissed down the back of every customer that you service. It wont be long until you run off all of Alltel's customer base now that you spent the money you have gotten by nickel and diming your own subscribers to buy the rights to service (screw) them as well.
Now comes forth this new drivel about the handset that is revolutionizing the entire wireless world as we know it. You refer to this as a fad that you will ride out until we all return to our senses and see that your CDMA "camera phone" is the most boss handset ever. All the while you are praying to RIM to please hurry up with the Blackberry Thunder so you can offer something other than that ugly, thick as two decks of cards LG turd that you offer to compete with the iPhone. Even Sprint, as pathetic as they are have at least a decent subpar device to offer in the Samsung Instinct.
Here is how sick you make me Verizon Wireless: I am going to cancel my contract, in July, the day I get an iPhone and I don't even have service at my home address. I have resolved to use my unlimited home phone and a prepaid Virgin Mobile for errands in my neighborhood. Just so I don't have to endure dealing with your company, who is riding out this whole, "iPhone" ordeal.
Good luck with your "camera phone" ads and your other handsets that have no improved features since the 1990s. You truly deserve to be vanquished by a company whose collective head is not buried up its hindquarters. For all the shortcomings of AT&T, at least they knew a good deal when they saw it, and didn't deny their customers the mobile experience it was meant to be.
Your phones suck, your Blackberries with their fragile trackballs, your camera phones, your phones that slide apart two ways with the tiny screens, your juke, your chocolate, I would rather use a Motorola Startac or carry around a bag phone. By the time you dislodge your head from where it resides now, it will be much too late. Switching to LTE will be your last chance at redemption, then at least your phones wont suck and you might still keep a few customers around to plunder.
Reply
Sean said 4:27PM on 6-30-2008
Jarts never went out of fashion! They were banned, which only made them cooler!
Reply
Mike said 6:49PM on 6-30-2008
this is why Verzion atleast there cellphone service Sucks! a Crapy Ceo for a crapy company and i cant wait to get out of my Verizon contract in a few more weeks hopefulyl days.
Reply