The Droid invasion appears to be going according to plan. Motorola’s new Android-based handset arrived at Verizon Wireless stores last Friday and analysts say it’s selling quite well. Indeed, Broadpoint AmTech analyst Mark McKechnie estimates Verizon sold about 100,000 Droids in its first weekend.
If AT&T took offense at Verizon’s “There’s a Map for That” ad campaign, wait until it gets a load of its rival’s newest ad spots. Unfazed by AT&T’s litigious reply to its first effort, Verizon rolled out a trio of new anti-AT&T ads over the weekend and they are brutal in their criticism of the carrier’s network coverage.
Well, this is a first, I think: Google is promoting a consumer electronics device on its front page. Surf over to Google.com right now and you’ll find this pitch plugging Droid, Motorola’s new Android phone: “The Droid is on sale now. Learn more.”
Beginning Nov. 15, Verizon subscribers looking to get out of their smart-phone contracts early will pay $350 for the privilege. That early-termination fee is double the current one, but Verizon insists it’s justified because of the higher prices of today’s phones. An interesting move for a carrier that just last year agreed to pay $21 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by California consumers over the very early-termination fees it is now increasing.
Droid, Motorola’s most anticipated cellphone since the launch of the Razr in 2004, arrived at market today, to a warm reception by most accounts. Some 2,000 Verizon Wireless stores opened early this morning, many to lines–though admittedly, the lines are far shorter than those that accompanied the launch of certain rival devices.
If AT&T’s lawsuit over Verizon’s allegedly misleading “there’s a map for that” ad wasn’t a public relations mistake to begin with, it will be by the time Verizon gets through with it. Responding to the suit today, Verizon rep Jeffrey Nelson used it to stoke public perception that AT&T’s network is inferior to Verizon’s.
With Palm’s shares up more than 900 percent since January, they were destined to suffer a correction someday. And now it seems that day has finally come. Shares in the handset maker fell some 23 percent last week amid concerns about increased competition from Google’s Android operating system, which is being rolled out on a number of devices at a variety of carriers, including Palm partner Sprint.
The Palm Pre may have been the most successful handset rollout in Sprint’s history, but it hasn’t stopped the carrier from hemorrhaging customers in the months following its launch.
Good thing Sprint expects to lose fewer customers this quarter than in previous quarters. Because if the company continues to lose them at its former rate–well, things are going to get even uglier. Reporting a wider third-quarter loss than expected this morning, Sprint said it lost 545,000 wireless customers and 801,000 more in the crucial postpaid category.
Verizon uncrated its latest iPhone challenger Wednesday morning, introducing the new $199 Motorola Droid, and it already has analysts buzzing about the life it may breathe back into Motorola, whose share of the phone market dropped by nearly half in the second quarter from 10 percent a year earlier.
Apple has a lot to gain by ending iPhone carrier exclusivity in the U.S. and signing up Verizon as a second carrier partner. According to Broadpoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall, the company may do just that in the second half of 2010.
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. But if and when it does is entirely up to Apple, according to Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
Best use of the Beeker “meee” ever.
While the technology behind the Telephone is new, the design is reassuringly old-fashioned, reminiscent of a phrenologist’s horn or ear-candle in form. We found the experience far more comfortable than the one we had with the Telegraph.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
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