A Verizon iPhone? If Steve Will Ever Speak to Us Again.
by John Paczkowski
Posted on October 26, 2009 at 10:20 AM PT
Though the iPhone-slagging ad campaign for its forthcoming Droid handset may make negotiations uncomfortable, Verizon is still very much interested in adding Apple’s iconic device to its smart-phone lineup. During a conference call to discuss third-quarter earnings, CEO Ivan Seidenberg said bringing the iPhone to Verizon (VZ), however, is entirely Apple’s (AAPL) call.
“This is a decision that is exclusively in Apple’s court,” said Seidenberg. “Obviously we would be interested if they thought it would make sense for them to have us as a partner. And so we will leave it with them on that score….We want to broaden the base of choice for customers, and hopefully along the way, Apple, as well as others, will decide to jump on the bandwagon.”
Comments
This highlights the business model problems at Verizon. They have their own proprietary Verizon 3G, so they are dependent on handset makers to make phones for them, out of what is increasingly becoming charity. If you look only at the US, Verizon looks large, but internationally, Verizon is a tiny island in the middle of a sea of standardized GSM 3G. In 4G this will be even worse for Verizon. They will either have to standardize and compete, or stay proprietary and have even less leverage to get proprietary phones made for them.
People who don’t yet have smartphones don’t start thinking about getting one and think “Verizon!” first. They compare an iPhone and a Blackberry or Nokia. They look at their friend’s smartphones and see if the features are ones they would use. They’re more concerned about getting their Gmail on their phone than getting on Verizon.
People also think “3G” is all the same, like “Wi-Fi” is all the same. Explaining that you’re giving up music, movies, 80,000 apps, a real Web browser, and many other features, all to get “better-quality 3G” is a tough sell to most people.
Verizon is so pre-iPhone, pre-Android. Archaic.
Posted by Fred Hamranhansenhansen at October 26th, 2009 at 4:13 pmVerizon is getting Android phones and the Palm pre. They already have Blackberry phones, so I would argue that they are on the verge of having an impressive selection of smart phones. The iPhone restricts multitasking (i.e. does not allow multiple developer apps to run at the same time), while the Palm Pre can run multiple applications at the same time. If anything is Pre-iPhone, it is the iPhone and not Verizon. Apple needs to update the iPhone’s aging operating system.
But if the argument is that there are 80,000 applications on the iPhone as a selling point, it’s like saying that New York has millions of residents, it must be a great place to live (I personally like NY). Look at the Windows operating system running on PC’s, the most valuable applications (i.e. apps) are no more than one hundred or maybe a few hundred at most – Word processing, Spreadsheets, Database, Graphics, Browsers, etc. Most categories contain only about three of four well know, and well received apps. And finally, the applications on the iPhone are making money for Apple and not AT&T, so how would that benefit Verizon? It is in Verizon’s interest to allow the market to mature and for strong competitors to arise to challenge the iPhone before they give the iPhone access to their network. In the long run, Apple will need Verizon much more than Verizon will ever need Apple. So whatever agreement Verizon signs should be to Verizon’s advantage – after all, it is their network.
I wonder how many people (and analysts) would like the iPhone to be on Verizon’s network simply because they own stocks in Apple? Or argue that the iPhone should come to Verizon’s network because they are a Verizon customer and want to buy the iPhone. I can understand their sentiments, but the question is – what is good for Verizon? Last quarter, Verizon added more subscribers – I think they are doing pretty well; and soon should do much better because of the Palm Pre and Android smart phones being introduced on their (Verizon’s) network.
Posted by Andrew Augustine at October 28th, 2009 at 7:53 pm