The war of words between Apple’s Steve Jobs and RIM Co-CEO’s Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis is heating up. First there was the almost comical response to “antenna gate” -the iPhone reception problems that were mysteriously aided by a plastic case Apple announced it would give away after the debacle. Now it’s RIM’s response to Job’s five minute tirade against RIM and Google during Apple’s recent conference call (shown below).
After Jobs proclaimed that Apple had passed RIM forever and the Playbook would be an afterthought, Balsillie shot back, saying:
“For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field, we know that 7” tablets will actually be a big portion of the market and we know that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web experience. We also know that while Apple’s attempt to control the ecosystem and maintain a closed platform may be good for Apple, developers want more options and customers want to fully access the overwhelming majority of web sites that use Flash. We think many customers are getting tired of being told what to think by Apple. And by the way, RIM has achieved record shipments for five consecutive quarters and recently shared guidance of 13.8 – 14.4 million BlackBerry smartphones for the current quarter. Apple’s preference to compare its September-ending quarter with RIM’s August-ending quarter doesn’t tell the whole story because it doesn’t take into account that industry demand in September is typically stronger than summer months, nor does it explain why Apple only shipped 8.4 million devices in its prior quarter and whether Apple’s Q4 results were padded by unfulfilled Q3 customer demand and channel orders. As usual, whether the subject is antennas, Flash or shipments, there is more to the story and sooner or later, even people inside the distortion field will begin to resent being told half a story.”
If you have reception on your mobile device, stay tuned.
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