Apple, Cingular claim victory over eachother

Cingular is on top. Here's why:

In the US market, Apple is tied to them by exclusive contract. At the moment, they have no other carrier for their phone. They need Cingular. They have no choice.

Cingular, on the other hand, can and does sell handsets from many other manufacturers. They don't exactly need Apple's specific product(s). Nice to sell, yes. Critical? No.

If the product flops, Cingular can walk away and sell other phones. Nobody expects much from them. Nobody will blame them. No pressure.

If the product flops, Apple is stuck until they come up with something else. A major part of Apple's reputation is riding on the success or failure of this one product. Virtually all the pressure is on Apple to deliver.

The coming rebrand as AT&T wireless is just going to make Cingular that much bigger and more powerful.

My comments relate to the US market. All bets are off in the international markets, where I suspect Apple will have the upper hand in most cases.

Hmmm. A rather simplistic approach to a complex relationship. I note that Lurie is the chief salesman for North America. In my experience, these types tend to produce a lot of bravado in relation to their own company. When titan's clash, it really doesn't matter who bent where/when - only what was accomplished by doing so. Given Apple's business model, I imagine there was a lot of negotiating that was driven by both sides.

The exclusive contract is as binding for Cingular as it is for Apple, they have to pony up to subsidize the phones in their services plans like any other. Apple has a huge amount of cachet in the marketplace right now, where other mfgrs have been doing simple incremental upgrades to their hardware, Apple has changed the playing field. On the other hand, Cingular had to come up with additional services to support on the iPhone which they didn't have to do for other phones. Services which Apple required - not a common practice among cell providers.

Given Apple's recent track record with product introductions, it would seem unlikely that they are worried about this flopping.

Cingular is Dead, Long Live AT&T