Could we be seeing the end of AT&T and iPhone exclusivity?
Jennifer McClelland | RSS | 3 Comments
I mentioned last week that Verizon was coming out with ads that are directly targeting the iPhone through both the “Droid” ads that feature Android based phones as well as the “there’s a map for that” commercials. Well, I suppose that Verizon definitely does not want to burn its bridges with Apple. Yesterday Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said that he (and Verizon) are still interested in getting the iPhone.
He said, “This is a decision that is exclusively in Apple’s court. Obviously we would be interested if they thought it would make sense for them to have us as a partner.”
Next year, exclusivity between Apple’s iPhone and AT&T Wireless is supposed to be coming to a close. Apple does have the right to extend the exclusivity, but in my opinion, the company could make more with the device if it were on other networks. The only problem I see is that everyone will have an iPhone and other companies like Palm will be seriously harmed because customers who have not wanted to hop on the AT&T bandwagon won’t have to anymore to get the iPhone.
Then again, not everyone wants an iPhone.
It makes you wonder what the terms were in the first place for AT&T to get the exclusive rights to the iPhone. I know that Apple was interested in the carrier because unlike Verizon, it ran on GSM which makes it easy to produce one kind of phone for the whole world. There aren’t any carriers that run on the CDMA networks outside the United States and the only major companies that do here are Verizon and Sprint.
Only time will tell what will happen with the iPhone and other carriers. I would guess that it won’t move over to Sprint or Verizon until the companies have implemented their 4G coverage (which Sprint is working on quite vigorously).
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Tags: exclusivity, commercials, ivan seidenberg
Matt | Tue, Oct 27 2009
Over here in the UK O2’s exclusivity contract with the iPhone is about to come to an end – Orange is getting it’s hands on it. It’s awesome news for us because the competition should hopefully push the price down BUT spread Apple’s coverage.
I don’t see it harming the Palm Pre or anything in the pipeline from HTC because iPhone still has issues that these phones sort out.
Chris McClelland | Thu, Oct 29 2009
I would have totally gotten an iPhone but I have got such a great plan with Sprint on the old unlimited Sero plan for $30 a month, I just couldn’t see myself going from $30 a month to $99 or more a month for the same minutes and features with the only difference being the phone. Now the iPhone is really cool but it would have cost me an extra $60 x 24 = $1440 for it over the next 24 months. I can get 2 42′ plasmas for that price difference. I am running a HTC Touch Pro on the sero plan and am only paying $30 a month for it so I guess I am doing pretty good.
taylor from iphone development | Thu, Dec 03 2009
I think it makes perfect sense for the iPhone exclusivity to end. It is my understanding that the only reason that arrangement was worked out (at least from Apple’s perspective) was because it was a good deal to get into the handset market.
Now that they lead the market, getting iPhones to other companies would only sell more devices. And perhaps more importantly, it would increase the amount of money that they could make from the App Store. At some point, they are going to become saturated in the hardware market, but the steady stream of revenue from software would be hugely benificial to them.