Steve Jobs Calls Competitors Out During Apple Earnings Call, RIM Co-CEO Jim Balsillie Brings It

By Mauricio

Steve Jobs needs to learn when to tighten up his turtleneck. It seems like every time something unexpected goes wrong at Apple, Jobs tries to shift focus to his competition. He tried to do this with the iPhone 4 antennagate issue but was quickly shot down by RIM co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie. This time Jobs had to explain why Apple dropped in their earnings but instead tried to (yet again) shift focus to his competitors:

In a tone that could be described as “righteous anger” or perhaps just “reppin,” Steve launched into a five minute rant that hit hard against RIM’s entire business model, Android sales numbers and software fragmentation, and the impending wave of Android tablets. With the iPhone surpassing RIM, Steve says that he “[doesn't] see them catching up in the foreseeable future.”

Jobs continued to say that 7-inch tablets are useless and “DOA”, another shot at RIM and their upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook. Jim Balsillie shot back though, professionally I might add:

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.

It’s all about facts but Steve Jobs seems to think he doesn’t need to mention them in his weak and misleading statements about competitors. Well done, Mr. Balsillie. What do you all think about this?