There’s been a little mini-controvesy about some statements made by national treasure Philip Yeo.
Apple products are for gullible dummies(youtube)
I’m by no means saying that Mr Yeo is stupid or a dummy, but on his facts he’s very wrong. And more importantly in all the fanboy noise (on both sides) many people have overlooked the most disappointing part of this video.
Firstly the inaccurate straw man. Mr Yeo is fundamentally wrong about where Apple’s money is made. Apple have always been a device-company, that’s why if you want iPhone OS or Mac OS X you have to by an Apple phone or laptop. They are about the end to end experience.
As you can see from the chart at Business Insider, their Q2 2010 revenue reports show software+iTunes makes up just over $1b, whereas their hardware makes up the rest of the nearly $11b left. Apple made just over $3b in profit so even if you think they spend nothing running the App Store, that’s still a good $2b profit left from the hardware.
However, and this is (finally) my point, everyone is focussing on the wrong thing. I quote (delivered with a cheeky I’m-a-genius-not-a-dummy grin):
“I always tell my daughter, try to make a product to sell to the dummies.”
“You need gullible customers to make money.”
Philip Yeo’s current position is as the Chairman of SPRING the enterprise development agency for growing innovative companies and fostering a competitive SME sector (from their website.
His) clear inference was that that people should make useless products to exploit/trick the dummies of the mass market, which is a horrible message to be sending out to SMEs and entrepreneurs. It smacks horribly of sales technique over quality product.
His subsequent, ST reported, comments are a laughable defence against the wrong issue: the hurt feelings of Apple fanboys. He was apparently referring to laymen (the mass market) and not idiots: “There is a big difference between idiots and dummies. If I was calling them idiots, I would have used idiots.”
The language and smugly superior tone are clear in the video. And this is the man at the head of the government’s organisation to promote excellence in small companies. It’s frankly very disappointing.
Perhaps next time he comments on business he should be less of the snake-oil salesman and more of the inspirational leader. If he means ‘attack the largest market you can’, a lesson that all businesses need to learn – particularly in Singapore, then perhaps he should say that rather than arrogantly inferring stupidity on 99% of people.
Above all, the major thing that I would have looked for from a man in his position is a message to actually build something amazing and useful, like the iPad in fact, but sadly that sentiment was nowhere to be found.