Stop Chasing Apple

It may turn out that the plodding, braying jackasses that run the major telcos, as beheld by the unschooled Internet crowd, actually have a brain and a vision and understand the world of communications as well as Steve Jobs.

It may be that patience really is a virtue and the perceived slowness to react in a meaningful way to the threat of over-the-top providers – one of which (Google) may be much more than OTP very soon – is the same display of patience that helped incumbents defeat the upstart CLECs. It could be.

Maybe it’s the same peaceful resolve that finally settled in about the realities of a weak Vonage threat and helped them get over their overblown fears there.

As experts threw their hands in the air in frustration at the years wasted by telcos testing the performance of DSL to the point of exhaustion – something they had wisely done with new technology for the last several decades – maybe someone, somewhere, somehow knew how important it was to get it right and that they had time to do so and that, yes, they would lose business to cable companies. But they knew cablecos were fallible too, and their success, though painful to service providers, served to keep the regulators at bay until fiber could do its magic.

And just maybe those guys – and they’re still mostly guys – at the helm of incumbency, are not stumbling and fumbling behind Steve Jobs and his ergonomic, app-for-that revolution. Maybe they’re using him as much as he is using them. Maybe Jobs hasn’t got it figured out either. And by “it” I mean the business model. Oh Jobs has the technology figured out, but according to recent analysis by Accenture, iTunes isn’t the formula for success everyone assumes it is. As Sarah (Gag Me with a Lure) Palin might say in her faux-folksy way, “How’s that micropaymenty thing workin’ out for ya’?” Wink.

Micropayments may not be the model of the future. And if not the iTunes model, then what? What is the business model for content and communications services?

Telcos were savvy enough to know the ringtone craze would fade. They’ve made their money there and will continue to let that stream flow as long as it will, but they didn’t run out and spend billions of dollars building out next-gen architectures based on the trendy ringtone. They didn’t declare that this was the new business model. And just now are service providers getting around to seriously considering a joint initiative to address this application delivery thingy and perhaps challenge the Apple concept.

Perhaps this is evidence that they now have a sense of what they think the new business model might be. But to be honest, it wears me down to say “perhaps” and “might” and “maybe” and “it could be that” so often. It would be nice to know for certain that someone, somewhere, someday soon will declare the new business model. But it is becoming clear that Apple is not the model to chase. Apple has great technology but really no better idea on how to make money on content in the long run than anyone else and even appears to be taking a page from the telecom playbook of walled gardens.

The characteristics that made Apple a success were its ease of use and its openness, working from a platform where people, devices and applications worked in harmony with the Internet in a very un-telecom, un-PC kind of way. The more successful Apple becomes, the more its harmony resembles the false, drug-addled peace movement of the 1960s where peace, love and understanding existed only until the purple haze cleared.

Sam Gustin of Daily Finance said it best this week in an article called “Steve Jobs at 55: The Blind Spot in a Visionary's Legacy”:

On one hand, Jobs will be remembered for his unparalleled design acumen and product vision that disrupted entire industries while delighting millions of consumers. On the other, he'll be remembered for his autocratic management style, obsession with control and, perhaps most worrisome, his increasing embrace of closed, hyper-proprietary products at a time when the tech industry is moving toward open standards and platforms.

Let me repeat ...“his increasing embrace of closed, hyper-proprietary products at a time when the tech industry is moving toward open standards and platforms.” Who would have thought even five years ago that Apple would be the next incumbent at which the Internet crowd would be throwing darts? It hasn’t happened yet, but patience is a virtue and maybe, just maybe, it could be that there are telephone company executives sitting back, smiling, and saying, “OK, now lets make our move.”

It could be.

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