— it turns out to be questionable.
Here’s the reporting of what Cramer said at RealMoney, et al:
Jim Cramer [the original link disappeared while I was posting this] of RealMoney outlined what AT&T/Cingular had planned for its aggressive iPhone marketing, his hint that the service contract would be “greatly reduced” piqued some interest.
Even more captivating was, then, the recap of Cramer’s notes, which claims that the AT&T call outright said that the company would be giving away service:
“In its call, the company made it very clear that it’s going to use Apple’s iPhone to get customers from Verizon Wireless by giving away its service for a year and a half to those customers who buy the phone.”
But, Eric Savitz chimes in:
The thing is, the story is a load of, uh, hooey.
I searched the transcripts of both the investor conference call yesterday with Cingular, and another today with AT&T, and neither says anything like that at all. In fact, the Street.com story is dated yesterday, and AT&T didn’t even hold its call until this morning. I also talked to Cingular spokesman Mark Siegel, who said that the company has not announced any details on service plans for iPhone users yet, and won’t do so until shortly before launch.
Maybe Cramer knows something he ain’t supposed to know — at this stage — and attributed it to the AT&T conference call. Maybe Savitz caught him in a faux-pas. Doesn’t make any of it less interesting.
Sure, I believe that cell phone companies will give away services to get customers away from other cell phone companies. I hear Haliburton has come up with free lifetime medical care for its Iraq contractors, too!
When I first saw the iPhone I thought it was a neat gadget. I still think it’s neat. I wouldn’t own one, nor do I need one. But I thought they would sell well.
But now, having thought it out more, them being tied to Cingular is just going to kill this thing dead. If they had made it open, to be able to work on any service to give people some choice maybe. But not now.
There’s too much bad press against Cingular/AT&T out there, almost to rival Sony. I don’t think it’s going to fly.
But what do I know. When I first started using the Internet, there was only IRC, FTP and Usenet (and Gopher…anyone remember that?). Then this new thing called the World Wide Web was going to come out and I said it was going to be a big flop….meh, I never called myself a visionary. Same thing with the iPhone. Will the status symbol image you get from owning one trump the terrible non-coverage that Cingular has? Dunno.
Let’s meet back here in a year to see what happens to the iPhone.
Cramer is an idiot!
I have suspected that there are “experts” who shill for financial organizations and are paid with insider trading information and immunity. Of course I have no idea who might do such an illegal thing.
Cramer has helped a lot of people build wealth, including myself.
How?
Because Cramer lays out how to make your own decisions on stocks, then tells you what he’s buying and selling (and more importantly, why).
The people who want to measure the man by how his individual picks are doing in a short period of time after they are made just don’t get it… but the people making money, and in turn making him money by continuing to watch his show do.
So much bad press against Cingular? Uh what are you smoking?
Cingular just announced Q4 results and they’ve upped their subscriber base to 61 million (widening the gap betwen them and Verizon), and the only bad ‘press’ are the ridiculous consumer reports opinions that stink to high heaven.
It was a brilliant move by Cingular to lock up apple for 2+ years…and there isn’t a carrier out there that would be a worthy carrier other than Cingular using GSM. CDMA? iDEN? Why support a limited and essentially dead (worldwide) technology?
Cramer’s a moron, and all he does is use his ‘in your face EXTREME’ type talking that gets the common folk to pay attention.
#5, I always wondered what kind of idiots listened to Cramer. Now I know.
I am surprised that people are not realizing that this is a replay of the equally silly rumor that Microsoft was going to give Zune purchasers compatible versions of any songs they had downloaded from the iTunes. Apparently, there are folks gullible enough to think big corporations are eager to give gifts to consumers.
If #5 likes Cramer you know he must be a twit. Anyone that has to resort to gimmicks to get their point across can only attract morons.
7 & 9 – Wow, you guys troll almost as good as me.
Unfortunetly, since you both failed to back up your lame opinions with fact, you’ve lost. Not that we needed any more proof you’re both idiots, but thanks for the confirmation.
Now… shut the fuck up. You’ve been owned.
(That’s how you troll, bitches.)
#10 – I would have been your daddy if that dog hadn’t beat me over the fence.