Sprint CEO Defends Company's Decision To Bet It All On the iPhone 187
zacharye writes "Sprint chief executive Dan Hesse is being watched closely by the company's board of directors, but the CEO has to answer to investors and subscribers as well. Last year in October, Hesse revealed that the company is placing a massive $15.5 billion bet on Apple's iPhone, and in a recent interview, Hesse defended the move, which has been criticized by a number of industry watchers. From the article: '“Subsidies are heavy for the iPhone. This is the reason why a high percentage of new customers is important,” Hesse said during the interview. “But iPhone customers have a lower level of churn and they actually use less data on average than a high-end 4G Android device. So from a cost point of view and a customer lifetime value perspective, they’re more profitable than the average smartphone customer.”'"
Apple Customers (Score:3, Insightful)
They pay more and use less? What a shocker! Who would have thought?
Re:Apple Customers (Score:5, Insightful)
They pay more and use less? What a shocker! Who would have thought?
Steve Jobs.
Re:Slashdot trolls (Score:1, Insightful)
An apple fanboi getting butt hurt at even the slightest criticism.Who would have thought?
WiMax and LTE (Score:5, Insightful)
Can he defend their WiMax flub? Can he defend contracting with a company that has a non-existant LTE solution?
Re:Apple Customers (Score:2, Insightful)
But the comment wasn't.
Please try to pay attention. We may discuss different things concurrently. That's ok, we can handle it.
This is bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you wany an apples to apples comparison, you should, at the very least, compare mobile web traffic from iOS to mobile web traffic from high-end 4G Android device - which is what the CEO was talking. And no one seems to ever announce this sort of data.
Stop with the fanboism. Seriously.
Re:Slashdot trolls (Score:4, Insightful)
A contrived negative Apple comment. Who would have thought?
Dude, the GP just defined Apple's entire business model. Seriously, that's it in a nutshell.
Furthermore, like it or not, Apple is deserving of much approbation, far more than they get on this site.
Re:WiMax and LTE (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the attraction to LTE when you have a 2GB datacap?
Re:iPhone vs DROID Devices (Score:1, Insightful)
So far as I'm concerned, that makes you the one stuck with the "crap device", one that is deliberately and with malice aforethought severely limited in scope. You are an Apple user, so I don't expect you to be able to remotely comprehend that, but there it is. You know, in the world of desktop operating systems most people are very open to the idea of choice, of being able to choose from a variety of options. Put an iPhone or Mac in their hands, and suddenly "there can be only one." If that's not a tribute to the power of marketing and general gullibility I don't know what is, but it's entertaining at least. To my fellow Android users, here's something you can try: point out to one of your iPhone-using friends something that Android does better (and there are many.) Watch their eyes bulge as they try to find a way to dispute your claims. Then laugh when they finally come back with, "Okay, so fine it does that
Your problem, as with most iUsers, is that you just don't grasp that there is an entire spectrum of Android devices out there, from crap to awesome, rather than just the few models of iPhone with which you are comfortable. You want to make simple, easy comparisons but you just can't do that. All cars are not Lamborghinis you know, and all Android phones are not top-of-the line. From my perspective, that's a good thing because unlike you, I get to pick the features and functions that I want, not what Apple thinks I want.
In any event, because there are so many different Android devices available, you simply cannot make sweeping statements about them without coming off as something of an idiot, as Dr. House would no doubt say if he were here right now.
Re:Apple Customers (Score:5, Insightful)
Women don't fiind endless babble about how terrible the iPhone is to be a turn on.
That's odd: most Android people I know (myself included) don't waste much time in conversation discussing phones, especially with members of the opposite sex, much less something such as the iPhone that we simply could not care less about. It's iUser arrogance to believe that all of us Android users care about the iPhone, feel threatened by it in some way. We don't, and we look down at people who so willingly allow themselves to be technologically shackled. But hey, to each their own.
Matter of established fact, it's the Apple crowd that has always been by far the most vocal. I've been in this business for a long time, before there was an Apple ][. And, since the advent of the Mac, and Jobs' deliberate efforts to encourage class envy to increase sales, it's always been the Apple people that are constantly deriding those using competing products. In the old days, tell a Mac user that his machine is limited because it didn't have any peripheral slots and he would say, "Why would you need them?" Today, ask an iPhone user why his phone won't support tethering, why it is limited to a single GUI, why it won't allow installation of non-Market apps, and he'll say, "Why would you want to do that?" Nothing changes but their underwear, I guess.
I dislike Apple intensely because at one point (decades ago) I made my living coding for Apple systems, and Apple truly was about freedom, openness, and the spirit of the personal computing revolution. Granted, that was Wozniak's influence: Jobs always was a dick. But today they pay lip service to freedom while doing their level best to turn you into a mere consumer of paid media, bought solely from Apple. No thanks.
Re:Apple Customers (Score:5, Insightful)
That was a very long rebuttal to a criticism of Android fans who endlessly babble about how they hate Apple.
Re:WiMax and LTE (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Apple Customers (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow, just wow.
First you mention iUser arrogance, then in the next sentence mention looking down on those (presumably iPhone owners) who let themselves be technologically shackled??
if an iPhone owner wrote the same thing about androids, they'd be modded down and called an elitist fanboy. But apparently it's okay to be an elitist android owner and ironically mock iPhone user elitism.
Re:iPhone users (Score:4, Insightful)
You forgot richer and better educated.
Because there are cheap Android phones that less well off people can afford, where as Apple phones are only available to people with a higher level of disposable income.
Oh and more sexually active
Being raped by Apple doesn't count.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)