The Oft-Unhappy Marriage of Apple and AT&T: "We're Apple. We Don't Wear Suits."

The Oft-Unhappy Marriage of Apple and AT&T: "We're Apple. We Don't Wear Suits." | Fast Company

There are lots of other fun little details, including a killer quote from one of Steve Jobs's deputies. When an AT&T rep suggested Jobs wear a suit to meet with AT&T's CEO, the deputy replied, "We're Apple. We don't wear suits. We don't even own suits." Zing!

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The group — which included iPhone software boss Scott Forstall — took the job seriously, even visiting the San Diego headquarters of Qualcomm, the company that supplies the chips for Verizon phones. But in the end, switching to Verizon would have been just too complicated and expensive. The new chips were a different size, which would require Apple basically to rebuild the iPhone from scratch. Meanwhile, changing carriers could mean voiding AT&T’s exclusivity agreement and inviting a nasty lawsuit. And it wasn’t clear that Verizon would be an improvement; at the time, it wasn’t any better equipped than AT&T to deal with the iPhone’s bandwidth demands.

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I think it was a poor decision and missed opportunity!

Just think of all the additional credibility Steve would have gained by wearing that suit. Everyone knows the clearest and most visionary thinking orginates in the rarified atmosphere of corporate CEO offices . . . numerous studies have been done showing that the moderate to severe blood flow restriction due to wearing a tie can result in diminished supply to the cerebral cortex which frees the more creative areas of the brain from the tight control normally exercised by the more logic centered regions.

Don't know about you but I would rest easier knowing the same type of thinking was guiding Apple that was leading GM, IBM and others too numerous to mention. ;D

I wouldn't give AT&T too much flack about innovation. Most of the modern world wouldn't exist right now if it wasn't for innovations or patents developed by AT&T over the last 100 years....including Apple.

AT&T Labs - A Reputation For Innovation - Technology Timeline| AT&T Labs| AT&T

Razormac said:

I think it was a poor decision and missed opportunity!

Just think of all the additional credibility Steve would have gained by wearing that suit. Everyone knows the clearest and most visionary thinking orginates in the rarified atmosphere of corporate CEO offices . . . numerous studies have been done showing that the moderate to severe blood flow restriction due to wearing a tie can result in diminished supply to the cerebral cortex which frees the more creative areas of the brain from the tight control normally exercised by the more logic centered regions.

Don't know about you but I would rest easier knowing the same type of thinking was guiding Apple that was leading GM, IBM and others too numerous to mention. ;D

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I nominate this one for post of the day.

schweb said:

I wouldn't give AT&T too much flack about innovation. Most of the modern world wouldn't exist right now if it wasn't for innovations or patents developed by AT&T over the last 100 years....including Apple.

AT&T Labs - A Reputation For Innovation - Technology Timeline| AT&T Labs| AT&T

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except for the fact that they were in a joint venture with bell labs for the longest time, most of that stuff isnt their discovery or invention

"We're Apple. We Don't Wear Suits."


this should be the quote of the century, That just like something Jobs would say.

Speaking of can anyone even produce of pic of Jobs ever wearing a suit? I once read an article a while back and it was saying that no one at Apple wear suits,business attire...etc it's a T-shirt & jeans environment and it obviously works.

bargsbeer said:

Speaking of can anyone even produce of pic of Jobs ever wearing a suit?

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I believe this was a Macworld cover:

Rofl Teh 1337 said:

except for the fact that they were in a joint venture with bell labs for the longest time, most of that stuff isnt their discovery or invention

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Bell Labs was owned by AT&T until they spun it off to Lucent and that didn't happen until the late-1990's. It was not a joint venture.

So yes, it is almost all those innovations were made at AT&T.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs

FWIW I specifically didn't mention AT&T in my post. Wasn't really trying to slam anyone in particular.

But, it does seem to be an unfortunate progression that corporations in general (like people) tend to do most of their creative work early on (I know there are exceptions, but they are exceptions). I do agree, most of the things electronic we take for granted today we owe thanks for to Bell Labs.

schweb is right on target.... Let's not forget who developed Unix, the very operating system you're using right now....

From the Wikipedia:

Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX, sometimes also written as Unix with small caps) is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna. Today's Unix systems are split into various branches, developed over time by AT&T as well as various commercial vendors and non-profit organizations.

Regards.

I think what's interesting in this article is how both sides of the iPhone "project" are at fault.

I was most interested in the commentary on Apple's choice of Infineon for the chip as a poor choice for the US market initially and its buggy baseband software in the iPhone.

If anything it was an interesting read on the intersection of vastly different corporate cultures. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, I wouldn't say one is superior to the other at this point.

good read

schweb said:

I wouldn't give AT&T too much flack about innovation. Most of the modern world wouldn't exist right now if it wasn't for innovations or patents developed by AT&T over the last 100 years....

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You're confusing the American Telephone and Telegraph company with AT&T, Inc, formerly known as SBC.

Yes, SBC bought out AT&T a while ago and uses its name, but that's about all it got out of the deal. SBC is not responsible for any of the innovations that took place under AT&T/Bell.

technologist said:

You're confusing the American Telephone and Telegraph company with AT&T, Inc, formerly known as SBC.

Yes, SBC bought out AT&T a while ago and uses its name, but that's about all it got out of the deal. SBC is not responsible for any of the innovations that took place under AT&T/Bell.

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AT&T was broken down into the Baby Bells, of which SBC was one. SBC in turn later purchased the parent AT&T. So I'm not confusing anything.

AT&T was AT&T
SBC was AT&T
AT&T + SBC are still AT&T

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At&t
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SBC_Communications

schweb said:

AT&T was broken down into the Baby Bells, of which SBC was one. SBC in turn later purchased the parent AT&T. So I'm not confusing anything.

AT&T was AT&T
SBC was AT&T
AT&T + SBC are still AT&T

AT&T - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
SBC Communications - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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See, I had this neighbor once. Her name was Ma Bell. Nice old lady, very rich at one time, could tell amazing stories about all the things she'd done in her earlier years, before she'd fallen on hard times. Had a rich son down in Texas who never paid much attention to her, until five years ago when he came back up and moved in with her. He seemed okay at the time, but after a few months, I stopped seeing her. In fact, I haven't seen her since.

Now the son lives in her house and dresses up in a wig and her clothes and calls himself "Ma." He tries to convince us all that he's the real Ma, real charming, won't you come inside and have some lemonade and I'll tell you some stories about the things I did in my earlier years.

He's not fooling anyone, though.

(He had a sister, a gracious Southern Belle down in Georgia, and she seemed to tolerate all his quirks and get along well with him, but I haven't seen her in a while, either.)

That's actually a completely different analogy than this situation.

That would be like AT&T (Ma Bell) started a new company called SBC at one point and kept it completely separate.

In reality, it would be like your story if Ma Bell had her left arm chopped off and grew into a new Ma Bell that then attacked and ate the original one.

The relationship was never as removed as you're implying.

schweb said:

That's actually a completely different analogy than this situation.

That would be like AT&T (Ma Bell) started a new company called SBC at one point and kept it completely separate.

In reality, it would be like your story if Ma Bell had her left arm chopped off and grew into a new Ma Bell that then attacked and ate the original one.

The relationship was never as removed as you're implying.

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I don't know about the quality of the analogy . . . but that would make one creepy Saturday Night Creature Feature movie.

schweb said:

I wouldn't give AT&T too much flack about innovation. Most of the modern world wouldn't exist right now if it wasn't for innovations or patents developed by AT&T over the last 100 years....including Apple.

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Well the company may be able to claim ownership of past deeds, but the people employed change, management changes, as does their attitudes and focus. The past is the past and if a company… any company… just tries to ride on the glories of past accomplishments and not move forward by continually innovating and building on those past successes and creating new ones, they are bound to stagnate and falter. It happened to Apple… if Jobs hadn't been pulled back in, the company would be dead by now.

Razormac said:

Just think of all the additional credibility Steve would have gained by wearing that suit. Everyone knows the clearest and most visionary thinking orginates in the rarified atmosphere of corporate CEO offices . . . numerous studies have been done showing that the moderate to severe blood flow restriction due to wearing a tie can result in diminished supply to the cerebral cortex which frees the more creative areas of the brain from the tight control normally exercised by the more logic centered regions.

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You don't need a suit to replicate this feeling. A quick choker hold to the neck of Jobs of other Apple representatives would give the same restricted blood flow you talk about.

Mind you you can't think different in a suit. Every CEO wears one. The tatty jeans and dunlop volleys are a different experience.

"We're Apple. We don't wear suits." Welcome to the cult. Nice manners Steve.