Tim Cook, Apple’s COO spoke at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium this week, in which he spoke in length about the forthcoming iPhone. In a 45-minute Q&A session, Cook revealed some thought process that went into the product’s development as well as the executive decisions that lead to exclusively partner with AT&T.

Tim Cook (left) & Steve Jobs (right)

This Q&A session is available for streaming via QuickTime from Apple’s website. However, AppleInsider transcribed the portion of Mr. Cook’s speech relating to the iPhone for your reading pleasure. For this we thank AppleInsider.

Q: Almost from the second Steve stepped off the stage at Macworld there are people in the press and other people basically coming up with reasons why Apple can’t succeed in the phone market. Can you talk a little bit about why you think Apple will be a success?

A: Well, I think the iPhone is a revolutionary product. And Steve mentioned this at Macworld. And I think this is a very, very good point. Revolutionary products only come along so often. You know, Apple had the Macintosh in 1984 that reinvented the personal computer industry. The iPod in 2001 which reinvented the whole music industry. And we think the iPhone is that class product for the cell phone industry.

Step back and look at the [iPhone] and think about what it is. It’s a very small, thin, lightweight device. It’s a revolutionary cell phone. It has visual voicemail, which if you’re not familiar with that, essentially looks like e-mail. So you can select precisely the voicemail that you want to hear, not the order they happen to come in. It’s the best iPod Apple has ever done. And it’s this really cool internet device that has desktop class email, browsing, maps and searching, all in one product. And so I think people are going to be amazed and delighted over it. So we’ll have to see. Obviously there are people who would prefer us not to be successful in this. But I think this is a revolutionary product. And we’ll see what customers think because that is the most important thing.

Q: Your stated goal for calendar 2008 is to ship 10 million units, which is about 1 percent of the overall market. But given the functionality and price-point of the product, it eliminates most of the low end of the market. How do you look at the available market for the first-generation of iPhone and what kind of market share do you think you could take in that market?

A: The traditional way that all of us were taught in business school to look at a market was, you look at the products you are selling. You look at the price bands that are curving the market. You think about the price band that your product is in. You assume that you can get a percentage of it. And that is kinda how you get to the addressable market.

The rest of the transcript can be found at Apple COO chats about iPhone, 3G, and the Cingular partnership [Apple Insider]