France Telecom CEO talks SIM cards, next iPhone, apps and more

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The CEO of France Telecom, Stephane Richard, recently spoke to Ina Fried at AllThingsD and spilled some juicy tidbits about how Orange (a global brand owned by France Telecom which currently sells the iPhone in 15 countries) has worked with Apple. He also made some interesting comments about Apple’s competition in the smartphone world while basically crediting them for creating the entire smartphone market! And yes, he mentions RIM and Nokia, two other pioneers in the smartphone game.

In terms of dealing with Apple, Richard’s comments about apps made me cringe. He’s basically favor of carrier-owned app marketplaces which were the standard before the iPhone came around. You know all that crapware that comes pre-installed on Windows machines and other smartphones? Yeah, he loves that stuff…