For control freaks like Apple, partnerships must be really frustrating. Famous for wanting to control every aspect of their product – hardware and software – plus sales, service etc., the torrid iPhone experience over the last 24 hours must have sent Steve Jobs fuming to say the least. It’s not absolutely clear who is to blame, but the guns are pointing at Apple’s partner, AT&T (and other carriers overseas).
So even though many decry Apple for being a relatively closed platform, the events of the last 24 hours may have brought some people round to Apple’s way of thinking, or at least made them more sympathetic.
But the reality is that partnerships in most sectors are an increasing necessity. As markets mature, product life cycles and development lead times shrink in today’s ever competitive landscape, organisations have to pair up to provide services they couldn’t do themselves, or at least not cost/time effectively.
Apple clearly sees the mobile market as a crucial one. So would it make sense for them to become a mobile carrier to control the experience end-to-end? Well, that would seem overkill. The bad experience involves activation, the general experience using AT&T and other carriers doesn’t seem to be a particularly big issue (or is it?). Apple is not in the pipes business, so why worry about the mobile pipes if it doesn’t worry too much about the fixed broadband pipes?
So, this got us thinking. As the title of this post conjectures, is the Apple/iPhone brand damaged by having a partner that is a weaker link in the brand experience chain? Anecdotal evidence from people being interviewed outside Apple/AT&T stores would seem to suggest (a) many folks attributed the blame to AT&T, and (b) the diehards waiting in line, sometimes for hours, love the iPhone so much that hurricanes probably wouldn’t have stopped them. And although mainstream news covered the travails, we can’t really see it denting iPhone desirability or demand.
But then you wonder, did Apple anticipate this beforehand and decide to accept the consequences because to have improved it (the back-end systems supporting activation) significantly may have cost too much or been too much hassle? Was there a trade-off?
We are, of course, drawing a parallel here with the BAA/BA fiasco a few months ago at Heathrow’s Terminal 5, where some believe BA may have skimped on the staff training to try to save a bit of money. If that were true, it would have been a spectacular own goal given how much it’s cost BA in compensation and negative publicity, not to mention the senior heads that rolled.
Conspiracy theories aside, it seems we need a clearer way of showing senior decision-makers the short and long-term costs of making key decisions like those discussed above. Because just as environmental costs are starting to be factored into the price of goods, businesses need to be aware of the full hinterland affected by the occassional short-sighted decision.
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There’s quite a bit involved in designing and running good research communities, so we decided to create this podcast where we speak with a couple of folks who have been actively developing communities for a number of years.
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Former BT futurologist Ian Pearson recently joined a futures consultancy with a bang when he put out the provocative report 
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