A Sinking Feeling Down in San Antone?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: September 6, 2007 8:35:19 AM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] A Sinking Feeling Down in San Antone?

September 05, 2007
A Sinking Feeling Down in San Antone?
Peter Burrows
<http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ByteOfTheApple/blog/archives/ 
2007/09/a_sinking_feeli.html?campaign_id=rss_blog_byteoftheapple>
For the boys down at AT&T, Apple's iPhone partner, there was plenty  
not to like about Steve Jobs' many announcements today. Here's a few:

Hope you enjoyed those Ringtone profits -- The days of fleecing folks  
for $2.49 for a snippet of song may now be numbered. Apple will let  
you take any part of an actual song for $.99 (so long as you've also  
spent the $.99 to buy the original from iTunes). As far as I know,  
the carrier gets nothing. It's not just the lost cash profits that  
will hurt. To the extent that the industry has to follow Apple's  
lead--highly likely--then AT&T and its carrier pals will no longer be  
able to point so much to this silly market as proof that they can  
build profitable new consumer service offerings on top of their basic  
business of selling connections. If ever there was a market just  
waiting for disruption by the likes of Apple, this was it.

Hello, Wifi -- When the iPhone launched, Steve Jobs made a good show  
of talking up the merits of Ma Bell and its network. But today's  
wireless download services work only with WiFi, not with AT&T's or  
any other cellular carriers network. Jobs even went out of his way  
during his presentation to point out that WiFi is not only faster  
than the 2.5G network iPhone users now get from AT&T, but faster than  
3G networks as well. Now, spin things forward to a future of  
ubiquitous WiMax connectivity, delivered in large part courtesy of  
Apple's friends at Intel. If that day ever arrives, is there any  
doubt where Apple will focus its efforts?

The iPod touch -- It's a compelling product in many ways--but the  
most obvious target market are folks who would love to have an iPhone  
but just don't want the phone part. That means there will be some  
people that might have switched to AT&T to get an iPhone, anyway--but  
now don't have to.

[snip]



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