Wireless Exec Pans iPhone

Telstra owns the wireless business in Australia.

Since the Apple (AAPL) iPhone may not make it to that market for years, the management at the company does not have much of an axe to grind about the success or lack thereof for Apple’s newest consumer electronics device.

But, a senior executive wants the industry to know that the iPhone does not have much of a chance being a big success. Greg Winn is quoted in The Inquirer as saying that “the iPhone is pretty much doomed. Based on an interview in The Sydney Morning Herald, “he said that Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and ZTE and others will be coming out with devices that have similar functionality to the iPhone.”

This is a minority report on iPhone, but it is hard to believe that Motorola (MOT), Nokia (NOK), and Sony Ericsson (SNE)(ERIC) will stand by and watch their market eaten by Apple. Unlike the iPod which was early to market, the iPhone is up against entrenched competition from larger firms with substantial resource.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected] . He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.