Apple Squashes Rumors

Apple will not develop a new, inexpensive iPhone just for the sake of offering a cheaper alternative, Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a speech on Tuesday.

The company’s focus is on creating great products, and it will not make a smartphone that does not past the quality test, Cook said during a webcast from the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet conference, which is being held in San Francisco.

“There are other companies that do that, that’s not who we are,” Cook said. “Our North Star is great products.”

Instead, the company is now dropping prices on the older iPhone models. That has been successful, and the demand for iPhone 4 models in December was greater than supply, Cook said.

“It surprised us as to the level of demand we have for it,” Cook said.

Lowering the price on older models is just one of the approaches Apple is taking to reach out to price-sensitive buyers. It’s not easy to balance quality and price, and that’s when innovation comes into play and new products could be created to meet consumer demand, Cook said.

“Sometimes you can take the issue … and you can solve it in different ways,” Cook said.

For example, the first iPod that shipped in 2001 was priced at $399, and now users can buy an iPod Shuffle for $49. There was also a big demand in the past to drop the price of Macs to under $500, and Apple tried and couldn’t do it, so it created the iPad tablet.

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Rambus Makes Cuts

Technology licensing firm Rambus Inc said it has reorganized its businesses into three divisions and will slash its workforce by 15 percent as part of its efforts to cut costs.

The company, which has posted a loss for the last three consecutive quarters, appointed a new Chief Executive in June.

Rambus expects to save between $30 million and $35 million in cash annually, most of it from cuts in its general and administrative expenses.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company said the reductions in expense and related workforce will begin in the coming weeks and are expected to be completed during the fourth quarter.

It will take a related charge of $6 million over the next two quarters.

As of December 2011, the company had 456 employees.

Rambus said it now operates three business units — Memory and Interfaces, Cryptography Research Inc and Lighting and Display Technologies. It also named Martin Scott as the new role of chief technology officer.

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