Vodafone chief exectuive demands that Apple open up
Vittorio Colao, Vodafone’s chief executive, explained that he has concerns about a wall that Apple appears to be building around iPad content.
The top man at the mobile phone giant yesterday told newspapers and magazines that they must start allowing customers to purchase newspaper subscriptions via Apple’s iTunes store. Lately, content providers, like The Financial Times and also The Times, circumvent the payment system Apple has in place, through which it takes a 30% cut for itself of all downloads. At the moment, The Daily Telegraph is available completely free of charge.
Under new rules though, publishers are forced to provide exactly the same offers through iTunes that they are currently offering on their own websites. Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, explained that his company’s philosophy is simple – whenever Apple brings new subscribers to the app, the computer giant earns a 30% share; whenever the publisher brings existing or new subscribers to the app, whoever the publisher is gets to keeps 100%.
Mr Colao has tried to suggest that it was too ironic that telecoms companies have been left to stand up for producers of content, especially when considering that, historically, telecoms operators were always accused of having closed networks, and still are to this day.
Mr Colao said that consumers are more than happy to hand over money for content, but stressed that the industry must work together and make the proverbial pie bigger, as opposed to fighting against one another for a bigger slice.