Australian Telco’s Lame Attempt to Bag iPhone

Lately, news from Apple has been as slow as treacle running up a snowy hillside. Even Steve has tried to stir things up, first with his thoughts on DRM, and latterly slagging off on education. (Not sure how that’s meant to boost Mac sales.) Up here down in Down Under Land, we’ve even had one considerate telecommunications exec making up news about Apple to try to give us something to talk about.

Greg Winn, operations chief of Telstra, Australia’s major phone carrier, has come out and bagged Apple for entering the mobile phone market, saying Apple can’t compete because it isn’t a mobile manufacturer. I know this is last week’s news, but I only get to dish out wedgies once a week. So Mr. Winn gets his a little late.

In a delightfully bizarre analogy, maybe trying to subtly suggest that Apple makes products only for the older generation, he advised that Apple should “stick to its knitting.”

Winn says: There’s an old saying—stick to your knitting—and Apple is not a mobile phone manufacturer, that’s not their knitting. You can pretty much be assured that Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and ZTE and others will be coming out with devices that have similar functionality.

Hmmm? Excuse me, Mr Winn, but how many of those companies, who you imply will kick Apple’s iPhone off the block, began life as mobile phone manufacturers?

Looking at Wikipedia, we find:

Nokia
What is known today as Nokia was established in 1865 as a pulp mill by Knut Fredrik Idestam on the banks of Nokia rapids. Finnish Rubber Works established its factories in the beginning of the 20th century nearby and began using Nokia as its brand. Shortly after World War I, Finnish Rubber Works acquired Nokia wood mills as well as Finnish Cable Works, a producer of telephone and telegraph cables. All these three companies were merged into the Nokia Corporation in 1967.

Motorola
Motorola started as Galvin Manufacturing Corporation in 1928. The name Motorola was adopted in 1947, but the word had been used as a trademark since the 1930s. Founder Paul Galvin came up with the name Motorola when his company started manufacturing car radios.

Samsung
1953: Changhee Cho founds Samsung trading company in Seoul ([YPM]).
1953: Samsung starts sugar production, which has since been spun off into the CJ Corporation.
1958: Samsung starts an insurance business.
1963: The first Shinsegye department store opens in Seoul.
1965: Samsung starts the Joong-Ang Ilbo daily newspaper, which is no longer affiliated with the company.
1969: Samsung Electronics is founded.

Sony
In 1945, after World War II, Masaru Ibuka started a radio repair shop in a bombed-out building in Tokyo. The next year he was joined by his colleague Akio Morita, and they founded a company called Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K., which translates in English to Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation. The company built Japan’s first tape recorder, called the Type-G. In August 1955, Sony produced its first coat-pocket sized transistor radio that they registered as the TR-55 model.

Ericsson
Ericsson (Telefonaktiebolaget L. M. Ericsson) NASDAQ: ERIC is a Swedish telecommunications equipment manufacturer, founded in 1876 as a telegraph equipment repair shop by Lars Magnus Ericsson. In the early 20th century, Ericsson dominated the world market for manual telephone exchanges but was late to introduce automatic equipment.

Sony Ericsson
Sony Ericsson is a joint venture established in 2001 by the Japanese consumer electronics company Sony Corporation and the Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson to make mobile phones.

ZTE
ZTE Corporation (Zhong Xing Telecommunication Equipment Company Limited), a state-owned corporation launched in 1985, is one of the largest telecommunications (GSM, 3G, WCDMA, CDMA, SDH, ADSL, IPTV, PSTN) manufacturers and wireless solutions providers in the People’s Republic of China.

Reading all their histories, one thing becomes apparent: none of them stuck to their knitting. Besides Sony Ericsson, none of them was established to manufacture mobile phones. And even Sony Ericsson was borne of two companies whose knitting wasn’t originally mobile phones.

And Mr Winn, are you thus implying Telstra would never venture into new ventures? Telstra’s knitting was wired telephony, but nowadays it’s into mobile and internet services. What’s that? You say, but they are related. Well, Apple has been building communications hardware since the year dot of the personal computer revolution: AppleTalk, for instance. So, taking Telstra as a guide, I’d say Apple is qualified to enter the mobile market.

What next, Mr Winn? Maybe you’ll tell us that Apple, with no previous experience making MP3 players, was mad to get into the MP3 player market, and maybe even should get out of it.

And if Microsoft had stuck to its knitting, PC users would still be using DOS and running Word Perfect and Lotus 123. (Okay, maybe that would have been a good thing. )

It makes me wonder if Apple has already given Telstra the heave-ho in negotiations with Australian carriers and this is simply a dummy spit.

I think the only one who should be “sticking to their knitting” is yourself, Mr Winn.

With Apple’s experience of blowing the MP3 player market out of the water, it, of all companies, should be extremely confident of success in a new market.

I’m not a fan of the iPhone, as we know; however, if it fails it won’t be because of Apple’s inexperience at building mobile phones.