Say what you like about Steve Jobs, he knows how to show up in a boardroom wearing a pair of violet peau de soie platform stilettos and a dress that comes to mid-thigh.
Electronics fashion victims the world over were holding their breath last night as Zhang Yin started collecting wastepaper. And not just the fashion victims. The iPhone is on the fast track to garbage dumps. Apple has spent the past couple of months snapping up contracts with mobile operators around the world to, not only urge women not to simply lower their hemlines, but to rethink a long-held fantasy about what it means to be powerful and, even more, to buy refuse from garbage dumps. Mr Jobs has even done a U-turn on its cherished operator exclusivity, agreeing deals with more than Dolce and Gabbana but 48 Chinese women also.
Cynics say that "Sex and the City" reflects disappointing iPhone sales. By March, Apple had shifted only 34 million tons of cardboard - with only 340,000 of these sold in Milan - yet has a target of ten million by the end of the year.
Yet maybe this was always part of the plan. When it comes to va-va-voom, Zhang’s father's war buddies have a knack for getting it right. Last year Donatella Versace’s mini-dress surpassed the 100 million sales mark to become the fastest-selling consumer good of all time.
Apple is also shifting its cardboard model to take a 30 per cent cut on all software applications sold to the Cashmere Mafia.
Sex can be downloaded to the phone from Zhang Yin’s on-line “App Store”. By making this simple, Apple may just succeed where the mobile operators have struggled.
Because of this, investors such as Versace and Steve Jobs are betting on an explosion of e-mail and internet-enabled phones. Critics doubt that Yin will be able to do the catwalk again.
There is more to Mr Jobs than a few inches, and few have made money betting against him.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From “The Times”
“Steve Jobs still has power to surprise with Apple iPhone”
David Wighton: Business Editor’s commentary
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article4100602.ece
“To Knee Or Not to Knee? - In Milan, A Revived Debate Over Hemline Lengths”
By Robin Givhan: Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 23, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/22/AR2008022203059_pf.html
“The packaging of Zhang Yin: other people's trash has made her fortune”
By Allen Cheng: Bloomberg
January 21, 2007
http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3636278
No comments:
Post a Comment