Stringer: Apple's Jobs is "Greedy"
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Sony's CEO Howard Stringer had a few choice words for Apple CEO Steve Jobs last Thursday, calling Jobs "greedy" because he wants a world where only he makes money, the New York Post reports.
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Whatever it is (Radio Shack for rich people? The Sharp -est Image?), the Apple Store isn't what it used to be, even a year or so ago. The initial thrills, the feelings of i-comfort and i-belonging, still await you behind its translucent facade, especially now, in the gizmodic spree of the Christmas...
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At the annual Apple show in San Francisco, chief executive Steve Jobs made two major announcements but only confirmed what bloggers had already sniffed out: iTunes will start renting out movies, and the company will offer a super-thin laptop.
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You've heard it all before. The CEO buys an iPhone, falls in love, and leans on IT to shift its stack of tasks to make work-enabling his new gadget IT Priority No. 1.But as IT departments scramble to sync e-mail and slap together Web apps for Safari-based iPhone access, the question remains: Can Apple's ear-candy crush object draft off this executive effect to true enterprise mobile legitimacy, or are execs' iPhone fetishes jeopardizing the integrity of their company's mobile strategy?[ For an in-depth review of the iPhone, see "iPhone: The $1,975 iPod" ]Here we examine the iPhone ecosystem's evolving backdoor bid for enterprise, one that pits security concerns, vendor intentions, and gadget affinities against caution-minded enterprise IT.Executive inroads to the enterprise A midsize company providing inventory supply services to schools, government facilities, and other institutions across the United States was perfectly happy with its mobile Palm-based inventory software until the CEO and other high-level execs purchased their own iPhones.?Suddenly, they were saying, ?Hey, this is really nice,? and reevaluating their whole handheld strategy,? says Ben Gottlieb, president of Stand Alone, which provides business inventory software and consulting services to the aforementioned inventory supplier. ?Then came the questions about where the Palm OS was headed and whether their inventory application could be iPhone-enabled.?Mark Russell, vice president of sales and marketing at U-Line, a Milwaukee-based manufacturer of under-counter icemakers and refrigerators, had an iPhone for fun and a Nokia E70 for work until he accidentally crushed the Nokia device in his mother-in-law?s recliner. Instead of getting a new E70, he asked IT to sync his iPhone with the corporate Exchange server.?Our IT guy was nervous at first, but when Visto added iPhone capability to its Visto Enterprise Server, he gave it a try,? Russell says, referring to the mobile messaging service provider, Visto. U-Line was already using Visto to sync its smartphones with Exchange.Russell is perfectly happy with his business iPhone and has no intention of repurchasing the Nokia or any other device. And according to Daniel Koshute, U-Line systems administrator, several other employees are ready to make the switch as well.The above examples are not unique. Like the PDAs, USB storage devices, and Wi-Fi devices that came before it, the iPhone is pushing its way through the side door of today's enterprises, thanks to a sexy interface, a superior mobile browser, and executive pressure.?Apple has definitely achieved its goal of making you smile every time you press a keystroke,? says Ken Dulaney, an analyst at Gartner.And it's precisely that smile that has enterprise IT nervous. After all, Apple has very openly targeted the iPhone as a consumer device, doing little to enable it with the security, management, and other features the typical enterprise IT department demands from any mobile platform it supports. Not to mention that Apple?s enterprise sales and support -- or lack thereof -- have not exactly endeared the company to the enterprise in the past. Yet analysts and vendors of smartphone software report that enterprise demand for the iPhone is rising.?When the iPhone came out, we had a surge of enterprise IT customers asking when we would support it,? says Senthil Krishnapillai, director of product management for Sybase iAnywhere, which will soon offer an iPhone enterprise e-mail syncing solution. ?They told us that management was asking for it.??We?re definitely seeing enterprise interest in the iPhone, mostly driven by executives and rogue users, rather than IT,? says Matt Parks, director of product management at Visto, which recently introduced iPhone/Exchange/Domino syncing for its Visto Mobile Enterprise server.IT in the crosshairs Perhaps most disturbing to IT is the security quandary it faces in supporting the iPhone.?An enterprise must ensure that whatever device comes into the environment doesn?t breach any of the security policies it has in place,? Dulaney says. ?Otherwise, they have two choices: Be a hypocrite, or lower their overall investment in security because one breach, no matter how small, is a breach after all.?Although it does come with VPN capability, the iPhone?s built-in security just doesn?t measure up to those of its more enterprise-focused BlackBerry and Windows Mobile competitors.?Most enterprises cite two must-have security features for any supported mobile device: the ability to force the user to create a complex power-on password, and the ability to wipe out the data on the device remotely if it?s lost,? Dulaney says. ?In order to do that, you need the right hooks in the firmware, which Apple doesn?t provide.?And because they aren?t yet in the firmware, software vendors that support the iPhone, including Visto and Sybase, can?t offer those capabilities.Other security, usability, and management issues are also conspiring to ensure that the iPhone will not dominate the enterprise any time soon.As opposed to the BlackBerry, the iPhone doesn?t provide any inherent firewall or data encryption. Now holding up to 16GB, the iPhone's storage capacity gives IT jitters because it can be used to steal large amounts of data from an unprotected PC. Moreover, the iPhone comes with a built-in camera, which many IT departments do not allow as a matter of policy.?One of the things that really scares me, particularly with government agencies, is that Apple?s core iPhone framework allows it to take pictures or video and record sound without any flashing light or other indicator that anything is happening,? says Jonathan Zdziarski, research scientist for a security vendor and author of iPhone Open Application Development, which explains how to develop iPhone applications using Objective-C and an open source, community-developed iPhone toolkit.?This lets Joe Hacker create software that can secretly eavesdrop on conversations and record video, then send the audio or video file anywhere over the network,? Zdziarski says.Apple could prevent such hacks by requiring the user to visually authenticate an application's ability to access the camera or microphone much like Leopard does for applications that want to listen for incoming connections, Zdziarski adds.Others have taken issue with the fact that the iPhone is based on the OS X operating system and Safari Web browser, both of which have been around long enough for hackers to know how to exploit. Yet, at the same time, it?s a closed system, at least until Apple releases a native SDK in late February or early March, so security software vendors are unable to provide protection software for it.Where?s the road map? Even when Apple?s SDK comes out, nobody knows whether it will provide the kernel and hardware hooks that security vendors demand. And that brings up another sticking point that enterprises have with Apple: the lack of a publicized road map.Enterprise IT depends on the technology road maps published by established enterprise vendors such as Intel, Microsoft, IBM, and HP to plan and budget for hardware and software upgrades. Apple?s road maps are a closely held secret.?Since Apple is primarily a consumer company, they won?t tell you anything until the day of release,? Gartner's Dulaney says.In the meantime, according to Zdziarski, some prospective iPhone software vendors and enterprise developers have used the Open Source SDK to get their feet wet. Others, such as NetSuite and Salesforce.com, are taking advantage of AJAX for the Safari browser, but this doesn?t provide the flexibility and access to the OS that a native SDK would provide.Another sticking point: Apple?s enterprise sales and support staff are minimal, rumored to be in the teens, although Apple would not divulge this information, and Apple has never demonstrated a real commitment to the enterprise, nor does it have any developed enterprise sales channel.?Apple needs to develop key enterprise partners to help them get past executive appeal and get traction on the IT side, and they simply haven?t done it,? says Sean Ryan, research analyst for mobile enterprise solutions at IDC.As for management, Apple offers nothing even remotely similar to the centralized device management capabilities offered by RIM or Microsoft. There are no tools for monitoring mobile assets or enforcing corporate software policies, and the iPhone?s reliance on iTunes for activation and software updates just doesn?t sit well with IT, nor does the need to send the iPhone back to Apple for a battery change.Waiting for the SDK Finally, until the iPhone SDK allows client software installation on the device, there are several outstanding usability issues. Even with existing corporate e-mail solutions, the iPhone doesn?t offer true push e-mail, but rather syncs with the server once every 15 minutes, an eternity for true e-mail addicts. It also offers no native calendar and contact syncing abilities, so users might miss rescheduled meetings.Meanwhile, enterprise e-mail sync vendors such as Visto, Sybase, and IBM have implemented work-arounds to cope with the iPhone's drawbacks. Because the phone provides no data encryption, IBM plans to provide all its Domino access using Safari, with absolutely no e-mail storage on the iPhone itself, according to Kevin Cavanaugh, vice president of Notes and Domino at IBM. Visto and Sybase take advantage of the iPhone e-mail client, but both provide tight control over attachment-download policies. Sybase?s iAnywhere can remove mail data from a lost or stolen iPhone, but not until the next time it syncs with the server.These vendors and others are waiting anxiously for the SDK, after which a number of security and other iPhone enhancements are expected to be offered by third parties, depending on the depth of access provided by the SDK. Meanwhile, AT&amp;T has begun quietly offering business service plans for the iPhone, starting at $45 per month, although with no notable business-focused extras, such as corporate e-mail syncing, as of yet.Still, the iPhone has a long way to go before moving beyond an executive luxury to becoming a true enterprise player. Much of the momentum depends on Apple?s cooperation and an enterprise commitment it has not demonstrated in the past.?Apple is doing just fine with consumers and businesspeople who purchase the iPhone with their own money,? Dulaney says. ?Those two groups make up 85 percent of the 2.5 billion phones out there. What real incentive do they have to screw with the enterprise??Related articles Review: Supersmart phones for extreme mobility We pick seven serious business phones with all the bells and whistles, plus the power and flexibility that real mobile professionals need Review: iPhone: The $1,975 iPod Apple's and AT&amp;T's high-price gadget is a heartbreaking triumph of greed over genius Video: Two Geeks and an iPhone: Part 1 What we use and why Video: Two Geeks and an iPhone: Part 2 Tips and tricks for e-mail, safari, and more Video: Two Geeks and an iPhone: Part 3 How to add third-party apps to your iPhone Thoughts on the iPhone/iPod touch SDK Enterprise comes to iPhone 15 things Apple should fix in iPhone 2.0
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As music growth shows signs of slowing, Jobs looks to extend its iTunes formula to movies and the living room. By Pete Mortensen. Plus: Check out our Apple Keynote blog.
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Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs continued his tradition of taking home only $1 in salary in 2007, when he also gained $14.6 million on paper by exercising stock options that were about to expire, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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That's our word Apple is taking action against more companies it believes are using the word "pod" unfairly.â¦
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Microsoft's Robbie Bach says Steve Jobs is wrong.
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An analyst for JPMorgan Chase made headlines recently by saying Apple would soon release an iPhone resembling its nano media player.  One of his colleagues, however, disagrees.
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A survey of Apple and AT&T stores finds they're not all the same when it comes to stocking and reserving the much-hyped gadget.
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The âVar Guyâ at TechIQ Magazine offers âfive reasons why Appleâs retail strategy is crushing the competition this holiday season:â Simplicity, Quality, Integration, Expertise, and Design. As an example, the Var Guy contrasts buying a Windows smartphone with buying an iPhone: âbuy the iPhone (five minute process), link it to your Mac (five minute process), and activate the iPhone online (five minute process), and youâll be wondering why Appleâs approach isnât the norm for the entire cell phone industry.â
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Steven P. Jobs apologized âfor disappointing some of youâ after early adopters who paid full price complained about yesterdayâs price cut.
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Up in the air: What exactly is on Steve Jobs' mind?
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By Mike Himowitz, The Baltimore Sun  Jun. 21--In just eight days, armies of breathless Apple fanatics will queue up at company stores around the nation, their pockets heavy with cash and plastic.
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(InfoWorld) - As this year's WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) approaches, Apple fans are furiously speculating on what kind of news will be dropped on us in San Francisco. We already know about the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard preview, and no doubt Apple CEO Steve Jobs will have something to say about the iPhone. But from what I know about the players and the IT landscape, I think Jobs has another "just one more thing" up his sleeve. I've been looking at what Apple and its partners need to do to fill gaps in their product line-up. At the moment, I think the Macintosh platform's biggest weakness is its reliance on Microsoft Office for productivity software. Microsoft has always built solid products for Mac -- but they were always just a bit behind or somehow incompatible with their Windows equivalents. Entourage does 90 percent of what Outlook does, but it lacks features right where it hurts: In enterprise settings. Word for Mac doesn't have the same Macro or OOXML support as the PC version. PowerPoint files are still not 100 percent compatible between platforms. Basically, Apple and its customers get the short end of the Microsoft stick. Add to that the industry move toward Web 2.0 applications and Cloud computing -- and a number of other recent shifts in the technology landscape -- and you have a climate for change. I don't think Apple wants to wait on Microsoft to delegate how its business applications will work. In fact, I think Apple would like to move forward with a leading-edge partner like, say, Google and create business rather than follow in it. That's why I think Jobs will take the stage at WWDC next week and announce that Apple and Google are going to team up to bring Google Apps to .Mac customers. Let's connect some dots and see what picture emerges: In a recent stockholder meeting, Jobs admitted that .Mac has hasn't achieved its full potential but said the company is working on it. Eric Schmidt, Google CEO and a member of the Apple Board, has said there are a lot of Apple-Google partnerships to come because both companies have "common competitors." Hmmmm. Microsoft is a common competitor, and its bread and butter -- aside from Windows -- is Office. We've already seen a flurry of Google Applications for Macintosh, plus GMaps and Gmail on the iPhone, so why not Google Docs and Spreadsheets integrated into .Mac? Seems like a perfect fit. Using iChat as a guide, we know that another network -- AOL -- allowed .Mac users to use their own xxx@mac.com address as their AOL Instant Messenger screen name. Google could do the same thing in Apps. Perhaps the whole mac.com domain would be ported to Google Apps. Google has lots of cheap, fast space. It also has the ability and desire to search it and advertise on it (monetize it). Gmail has won the battle against .Mac's mail for most Macintosh users. As for calendar/IM/address book integration, disk space, and spam detection, Google wins most of the battles hands down. Google spends $5 per domain for Apps users through its Adsense subsidiary. It wants more non-paying users, and Apple would be happy to offload its .Mac users. Those users, who pay $100 a year as .Mac members, could get a premium version of Google Apps with desktop backups and larger file space as well as the benefits they currently enjoy. Apple's focus is on hardware and software. It should -- and should want to -- stick with what it does best. We know that iChat in Leopard has a special account preference for GTalk accounts. Of course, you can currently use any Jabber server in iChat -- GTalk is based on Jabber -- but it's interesting that Apple has split off GTalk from the rest of the Jabber servers. It has been 18 months, forever in software development at Apple, since the iWork app was last updated. That is lots of time for Apple to do some pretty interesting things. I would love to see Apple enter the Blog editing game, where MarsEdit, Ecto, and Journaler are sweeping up. Such a move would be a serious game changer for the fight on the Mac platform between Apple's Pages and Microsoft's Word. And for Google, what better way to get into blog editing than with its Writley technology? Google needs a Keynote type of presentation tool; Apple needs a spreadsheet tool to round out their Office competition. Each has what the other needs. Throw Sun's OpenOffice.org into the mix. The first native Alpha release of this software came out this week. Both Apple and Google have been playing very nice with Sun lately. iWork. The most important piece of the puzzle might just be iWork, which could be a caching front end for Google Docs and Spreadsheets. Use it when you are on an airplane, at grandma's house with no Internet, in the subway, or wherever Internet access is spotty. Or how about this curveball: Apple could port its iWork and iLife applications to Windows? Quicktime and iTunes already enjoy a large following in the Windows camp. Woo them with the apps, win them over to the OS. Oh, and one more thing. I realize we're flopping off of the deep end here, but what if Apple were to sell a Leopard virtual machine for Windows that functions like Parallels in Coherence mode (except you'd have the Mac OS running in Windows, not the other way around)? The result: Run Leopard anywhere! You could even boot from a Google hosted OS. This need not be a full version, mind you, but a stripped down, embedded version of the Mac OS like what's being thrown into Apple TV and the iPhone. One of the great things about virtualization is that there's less need for drivers and such, which makes installing small Google or Apple apps on your Windows desktop easier. Okay, that scenario could be years away, or never to be. But I think there is every chance that we'll hear something about .Mac integration with Google Apps next week. It makes sense for all parties and would finally give Microsoft a run for its money. Plus, there's that old saying: the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Seth Weintraub is a global IT management consultant specializing in the technology needs of creative organizations, including The Paris Times, Omnicom and WPP Group. He has set up and managed cross-platform networks on four continents and is an expert in Active Directory/Open Directory PC and Macintosh integration.
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New allegations surface that Apple CEO was involved in improperly backdating movie studio stock-option grants.
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Mac fans, brace for impact: The annual speculation about what Steve Jobs has up his sleeve is already at full throttle. At the top of the rumor mill's leaderboard? A very small subnotebook.