iPhone Business Model Hits a Snag in France 332
Serhei writes "It seems like the iPhone might not be released in France by this holiday season, since French requires by law that all cell phones sold there must be obtainable in an unlocked version. Apple will not be able to do so, since it has launched with a 5-year exclusivity agreement with AT&T. That deal will probably require exclusivity worldwide to avoid grey-market imports. (In return for this agreement Apple receives a large share of AT&T's monthly revenues from iPhone subscribers.) If the iPhone falls through in France, the country can join Belgium and a potentially long list of other countries with unlocking laws, whose Apple fans will have to make do with other, less Apple-y phones. Note that there is currently no mention of the iPhone on the Apple France page."
Good news! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Good news! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Good news! (Score:5, Informative)
There are strong anti-tying directives, to keep the american-style business model (microsoft, walmart) from damaging the economy here. France has consumer protection laws at least as strong as those in Germany, and most countries here have varying levels of enforcement. The UK has some of the weakest consumer protection laws, and with OfCom, no enforcement whatsoever.
I've been hearing more iPhone rumors this week, the biggest is T-Mobile has put their rollout plans on hold because they could not show the regulator the required unlocking function or unlocked phones. O2 in the UK is safe, because even though they will be violating laws there, the fines will be years down the road and only then a tiny percentage of the profits made.
There are no other populous countries in Europe where the iPhone could be sold without an unlocked version. Apple has really shot themselves in the head with this move. By locking themselves out of the largest GSM market in the world, they can't hope to achieve any kind of marketshare.
the AC
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You think you have a good phone selection? We can use any phone we want on any network we want. We have locked phones too of course, but the providers are required to unlock them if the contract with the customer has expired and the customer asks for it. This is to ens
Re:Good news! (Score:4, Insightful)
Nokia doesn't seem to have a problem making a profit selling unlocked phones, neither does SonyEricsson, Samsung, LG, HTC etc. Apple could have sold way more phones if it had been available worldwide, unlocked and without a plan, just like e.g. the iPod.
And they should have released in Europe first, by the time the iPhone was released in the US, it was high-tech for the US market, but not so much for the EU market. by the time it arrives in Europe, it's outdated. Sure it has a nice user interface, but it misses a lot of the features people expect, like UMTS or HSDPA.
amen! (Score:3, Interesting)
It'll be sweet if he EU has Nokia's clone first. Nokia's clone might not have quite as slick a user interface. But I'll bet al the Nokia lovers prefer it. And there's no doubt it'll have way way more features.
Normally I would agree (Score:3, Insightful)
Europe, and not just the EU got this one right. They understood that to grow the pie you need to be open and allow choice. You need to allow people to choose whatever phone, and plan t
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW, it's Apple's choice not to enter the European marketplace, not the EU's choice. There's no reason why they couldn't play by the same rules other providers are. Well, except they might have locked themselves in with AT&T.
Also, while TFS mentions
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
UK law is similar - an unsubidised phone must be unlocked and with a subsidised phone if you buy your way out of the contract they must provide an unlock code (http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/Oftel/consumer/advice/faqs/mobfaq3.htm)
A number of people are ready to challenge the apple policy in the UK once the iphone is launched there.
Re: (Score:2)
Your "tampering" is simply the market reversing Apples obsession for control.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I am aware of an effort under
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good news! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
What's to stop Apple from creating an EUPhone which is similar to the iPhone but not really the same product? Is Apple tied on all of it's phones world wide to AT&T or just the iPhone models? Or can they release a different phone in EU?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm someone who rarely uses my phone for actually talking to people - but I still don't see what the Iphone brings to the table. If you want email, web browsing and mp3s on a phone, any old dirt cheap phone does that at a fraction of the cost. If you want to run native applications and have a general mini-computer, smart phones have been around for years.
Also, here in the UK at least, it's common that you either pay for a
Re: (Score:2)
This is excellent, it means those EU countries which won't accept iPhone will have to churn out something thats a whole lot better, this is good news for consumers!
Oh yeah, a good thing consumers there have less choice, they never buy what's best for them, unlike us who know better, it's a good thing their choice is being restricted to what we deem better for their clueless self.
Re: (Score:2)
if you believe such things, then i have some moon land to sell you....
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Let me get this straight.... you REALLY think such regulation would prompt somebody to make a better phone than Apple?
Why would they?
They no longer have to!
If I were a phone maker, I'd say, "Thank you for locking out our toughest competitor."
Score another one for corporations who scam consumers into thinking regulation is good for them. Pay attention, this is how it's done folks.
Re:You have got to be kidding... (Score:5, Insightful)
A free market is not a goal in itself, just like unlimited freedom of citizens isn't a good idea either.
It's a good idea to limit the citizens freedom to commit murder, just like it's a good idea to limit the freedom of companies to pollute and corrupt the marketplace.
Businesses cannot be allowed to rule the marketplace without oversight as it's very profitable for the monopolist to corrupt the market and keep other competitors out, this leads to less competition and less choice for the consumers.
Even if a company cannot get a monopoly it can still enter into price fixing agreements and again the market and customers lose.
There are tons of situations where companies just don't do the right thing and the market forces are too weak to steer them straight.
Saying that any regulation is always worse than no regulation is naive in the extreme.
Our laws enable us to use any phone on any network and it allows us to change operators easily without changing phones, that has led to very low prices and a wide selection of phones, saying that it's worse to have more competition and lower prices at the cost of a little regulation sounds downright silly.
A government isn't totalitarian just because it regulates a market, it's a much bigger problem if it started passing laws governing what citizens could do in the privacy of their own home.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see how. If Nokia, Samsung, etc don't have to worry about competing with the iPhone in Europe (thanks to Apple's marketing blunder of signing up with AT&T), what pressure is there for them to make a better product?
No worldwide exclusivity (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:No worldwide exclusivity (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Look at the German page, you'll see that T-Mobile is the exclusive carrier there.
Yes, but the German version will be locked to T-Mobile Germany, so this is no competing product to AT&T in the US. But if an unlocked version would officially available in France, nothing would stop people from reimporting them to the US and using it there, without the control of AT&T. So the (not world wide but US) exclusive deal of AT&T with Apple might prevent Apple from offering an (official) unlocked version anywhere.
Re:No worldwide exclusivity (Score:5, Interesting)
And a product sold in one country of the EU is available in every country of the EU (common market rules) so everyone will be able to buy one.
AT&T requirement is US only, not worldwide (Score:2)
Exclusivity - bleh (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Exclusivity - bleh (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. France disagreed with the U.S. about Iraq (and yes, even though their reasons for doing so weren't the most honorable, it's fairly safe to say at this point that they were on the "right" side of the debate). However, this was a criticism of a matter of foreign politics and policy, and not some sort of personal vendetta against the entire population of America (especially those evil industrial design firms in California!)
It was the US who took the issue way too far. Even though it was a joke, serving "freedom fries" in the senate cafeteria was terribly crass.
Surprise! The world does not hate Americans by default. Most of them don't approve of what the government's doing, but neither do 70% of Americans these days.
Actually Apple is popular in France (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually Apple is popular in France, major executives have been French.
You might also check up on current events, when French and German citizens got to vote the results turned out a bit different than what the mass media wanted to portray. Candidates friendly to the US won.
When I was in Paris last year I was treated very well. Even though my French language skills are nearly non-existent. Disagreeing with a government's policy decision does not translate into a population hating companies or citizens.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The anti-French sentiments in the US that appeared after France refused to join the war on terror in Irak was one big mistake. The French president said at the time "We just want to prevent a friend from making a big mistake".
Now that most people in the US came to the same conclusion as the French president (albeit a bit late) that Irak was one big mistake, this anti-French attitude can be reduced to nothing more than a troll from the US government. Too bad you fell for it.
However, the same can b
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
By the way, that picture, taken out of its original context is just as much a troll as what you posted.
My point still stands. You know what the first victim is in every war.
Re: (Score:2)
Merde! (Score:2)
something is missing (Score:5, Informative)
also- from the link, the "5 year exclusivity agreement with AT&T" is only for US Distribution.
Re:something is missing (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, hence the comment about grey-market imports. It's unlikely that AT&T would be happy with the iPhone being sold unlocked in any country, as those unlocked phones could then be imported into the US, despite the exclusivity agreement.
No, it wouldn't be as easy as if the iPhone was available unlocked in the US, and yes there are ways to unlock an iPhone, but that's not the point. If I were at AT&T and negotiated the deal, I'd have made damn sure that Apple were bound not to sell the iPhone unlocked anywhere, to make it that bit harder to obtain an unlocked one. Remember, you don't have to make it impossible, just hard or risky enough that that people can't be bothered.
Re: (Score:2)
Happy, schmappy. AT&T knew what they were buying and Apple knew what they were selling.
Nobody in this thread knows how long the AT&T exclusivity deal lasts or what restrictions there are on sales of unlocked phones in other countries. The article's claim of a
Re: (Score:2)
This is why marketing products differently, in different countries, in the 21st Century is stupid to begin with. With the Internet and FedEx, physical location doesn't mean anything in regards to availability anymore. This isn't the 1500's where getting electronics from a
Re: (Score:2)
US legality (Score:3, Informative)
Correct me if I'm wrong here.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
But couldn't Apple have just prevented this whole mess if they had charged like $1500 for the iPhone, and offered a $750 mail-in rebate for purchasers who signed a 5-year contract with AT&T?
Yes, but it would make more sense for them to just sell it with a five year contract. The mail-in rebate thing wouldn't add anything other than to put people off buying them.
The important thing is that they can't prevent people using the phones on other networks. That isn't compatible with selling them with a five year contract that gives them access to a particular network, provided that they don't prevent people using the phones on other networks. Get it?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How would they get hit hard? If they don't buy the iPhone they won't have spent the money, and AT&T isn't out anything because they weren't going to subscribe with them anyways.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
errors in summary (Score:5, Informative)
Apple has already announced an exclusive deal in France with Orange (France telecom), and it's this deal that is in danger because of the law. Apple is partnered with T-mobile in Germany and O2 in Britain, so this really isn't about any worldwide exclusivity for AT&T.
AppleInsider's report on this situation. [appleinsider.com]
Re:errors in summary (Score:4, Insightful)
This is probably Apple's original plan. A year from now we are very likely to see the iPhone for sale in 1/2 dozen markets, each locked to a single provider in that market.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't see how this solves the problem brought up by this article. Apple can't just sell the phone locked to another provider, French law says it has to be available with NO provider as well, even if they do a partnership. If that happens a load of those unlocked Apple i
The iPhone's edge (Score:2, Interesting)
Good ol'e Steve is convinced, however, that only a tied-up customer can be conveniently milked, and therefore will also bundle it with an exclusive operator contract.
European customers were already fed up with the local operators, who were milking them to death via international roaming, before being forced to lower the price by an EU regulation (think of the FCC ever doing something like that...) n
Why iPhone can't be exclusive (Score:3, Insightful)
What is the iPhone? It's just a phone with nice easy interface on a large touchscreen. It's not terribly hard to copy, nor is it illegal.
If Apple decided not to sell in France and other countries because it can't have 100% exclusivity with one provider, the other companies will fill their niche just fine. The only loser is Apple themselves.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
What is the iPhone? It's just a phone with nice easy interface on a large touchscreen. It's not terribly hard to copy, nor is it illegal.
Nothing that Apple does is terribly hard to copy, but oddly, NOT A SINGLE COMPETITOR ever seems to actually "get" what Apple is really doing.
Why is it that nobody but Apple seems to understand that too many features actually BREAK a product and reduce it to a tiny minority appeal (yes, looking at the slashdot crowd here)?
Why is it that no competitors (except Palm, apparently, who employed a "click counter" for their Palm OS to keep it simple) appear to let anybody except ENGINEERS actually USE their equipm
iClone (Score:2)
$3 a month is a large share? (Score:2, Informative)
The exclusivity is so the phone companies don't get to rape iPhone customers financially. Before you get to carry the iPhone you have to agree to flat-rate data and reasonable voice plans. Even though the iPhone is by far the most popular smart phone, it has the cheapest device plans. Treo users can choose
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You are dead wrong.
Sprint's unlimited Power Vision (3G) service is $15/mo for regular joes. We won't even mention the SERO plans that start at $30/mo for 500 minutes, unlimited data, unlimited SMS & MMS, unlimited mobile-to-mobile, and free nights/weekends starting at 7.
AT&Tingular charges $20/mo for unlimited data with 200 SMS/MMS messages.
Now
How about wifi? (Score:2)
phones is that wifi is where it's at - far superior to 3G.
Does Treo support wifi? If not yours is far from an
Apple-to-Apple comparison (no pun intended).
Re: (Score:2)
What I'd like to know is..... (Score:4, Insightful)
The argument is that Apple obviously has legal counsel who foresaw all of these problems (risk of class action, being made illegal in certain countries, etc...)
Yet they do not have any problem doing this for what (in hardware evolution time) is several lives long, and they are basically risking everything on this gamble.
What could it be that made the pot so sweet that they went with this deal on a debut product?
And on the opposite side of the coin, what could have been so incredibly bad about offering the phone unlocked with a SIM card slot
that they, -who pride themselves in public for being so 'open'- did not see that as a viable option?
Do they act so arrogant that they don't even want to please all of the international travelers who swap SIM cards
every time they arrive in a new country? Someone, please drop some science on us. As it is, it makes no logical sense.
(Oh yeah, and BTW Steve, if you happen to read this, just email me the 411 directly...! KTHXBYE)
Z.
a note: iPhone uses an ordinary SIM, in a slot (Score:5, Informative)
What myth? (Score:3, Insightful)
The slot is not of much use when the phone is locked to a specific SIM card. Which is what the GP complained about. Switching to a local SIM card when you come to a new country will of course save you a lot of money, when the phone will refuse to operate. But keeping your phone turned off will save you the same amount, and be much simpler.
You'd think (Score:3, Insightful)
What? (Score:3, Funny)
I hate them (Score:2, Funny)
Not as dead end as you think (Score:2)
Sure, there are proxys, but this would shut out 99% of the problem. People couldn't just buy an iPhone in Europe and use it here theyd have to know what they were doing.
Go back to the drawing board (Score:2)
Can't see that working so well
Re: (Score:2)
Five YEARS? Wow! (Score:2)
That's one of the most stupid things I've ever heard of, how could Apple paint themself into a corner like that?
(No, I'm not a pro-unlock person, I can see why they did it but for such a long period of time? Utter stupidity)
UK Too (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I was interested in the iPhone, but I'm an old fox, so I decided to wait and see and right now, I will never buy one. I don't like the way Apple and AT&T did this, nor do I like what is c
Re: (Score:2)
Even if you exclude those who prefer a simple phone over a smartphone, thus eliminating problem number 4, you still have four very solid reasons against buying an iPhone vs. buying another mobile. It's expensive. It doesn't do UMTS or HSDPA. It's not quite
3G pundit folly (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
iPhone will be known as... mini Godzilla phone! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, with over 2 billion cell phones in circulation in January 2006, I would imagine the number have increases somewhat, so yes the total world market is a few billion. http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=707714 [google.com]
That is a somewhat different ball game than your previous post; it is true that there are billions of phones in use all over the world. What your post then implied was that the Apple iPhone had the potential to be an instant de facto monopoly by conquering that market within 75 days.
jcr: sold a million units in 75 days.
IdleTime: With a potential of several billion phones, I'd sat not that good.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
By branding it Apple.
Wake me up when it hits 50 million [motorola.com] (or 12 million in 90 days). Any product that a big company like Apple put out is going to sell a load, and given how much advertising it gets (I don't see daily RAZR stories here on Slashdot), it's very telling how its average sales are.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Mr. Ballmer! (Score:2)
Re:The iPhone will be known as Steve's Folly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
re: why the iPhone is superior to my current one (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Either your phone is unlockable and legal or it's not and illegal. Simple stuff.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They made their mistakes long ago with Apple III/Lisa and/or other lines and have done nothing but win consumers over since then.
...With the IIvx, and the Newton, and the clone licensing program, and the Performa line, and the PowerBook 5300, and... ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, no. The last Apple product I owned was an Apple II+ which definitely dates me. No iPod, no Mac, no iPhone. Like I said, I'll wait. I'm happy with Ubuntu for personal use and support MS platforms for work. Some day...when I have the disposable income, I'll get a Mac. I'll probably never buy an iPod and replacing my functional 5 year old cell phone won't happen until it dies.
Viva la france (Score:2)
France? Heh. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty much the shape of things, I think. Between Nokia, Motorola and Ericsson, there's little enough room for this overpriced market entrant. And since we're already used to being able to transfer MP3s to and from phones freely via USB and Bluetooth, this business of direct downloading to the iPhone is unimpressive. Maybe it's a big dea