Verizon and iPhone in 2010?
It’s a slow news day so we’ll just enter into the realm of ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybe, kinda, sortas’ for a minute and imagine a world without barriers. Sounds nice doesn’t it? Imagine a place where you would be able to have the best possible smart phone device for you personally regardless of who your carrier is or is not partnered with. Imagine there’s no dropped calls …. it’s easy of you try. I think I may be channeling John Lennon ……
Anyway, what I am imagining based on a report from All Things D is the ability to possibly have an iPhone even though I am a Verizon customer for the foreseeable future. That’s an interesting prospect for sure but one I will have to do a ‘wait and see’ on.
Apple has a lot to gain by ending iPhone carrier exclusivity in the U.S. and signing up Verizon as a second carrier partner.
….such a deal could more than double U.S. iPhone sales in the near term. That said, it does have some noteworthy downsides, top among them, the end of the estimated $450-per-iPhone carrier subsidy AT&T (T) has been paying.
That’s the word from Broadpoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall, who believes Apple (AAPL) will bring the iPhone to Verizon (VZ) in the second half of 2010 and forfeit AT&T’s “sweetheart” carrier subsidy as a result.
With the number of iPhone apps growing at the current rate of ‘really fast’ and the B to B marketing crowd seeing the value of building apps for branding purposes this is a great bit of speculation that I hope comes to fruition. While I have thought that going “droid’ may allow for me to have the best of both worlds I have to admit that having two devices now (BB Storm or phone, e-mail etc and iPod Touch for music, apps etc.) is a pain. I am not so convinced now that having a droid device and the iPhone is a good thing because carrying two separate devices is just not a good thing.
As this plays out marketers are going to have to make some hard choices as to which platforms they tie their marketing budgets to. While many look at the number of devices that Apple will sell if they were out from under the AT&T deal as weighed against the smaller subsidy the real money is in the apps. If twice as many people have an iPhone then the app sales go through the roof and Apple has a license to print money.
Well, one thing this whole aura of uncertainly has created is one less droid device sale. I’m holding out to see if this Verizon and iPhone thing happens. Until then I’ll just suffer. Actually, I can’t seem to make up my mind on this one. Maybe I’m channeling Brett Favre ……
Original post:
Verizon and iPhone in 2010?
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.