Apple needed Verizon more than Verizon needed apple. Hell apple needs the cellular companies more than they need apple and yet apple demands to be the one in control.. typical apple.
I think you need to take a class on logic.
Pretend you're Cingular for a second. No, seriously. Pretend you're Cingular. You have some 50 different cell phones for your customers to choose from. You have 51 million customers, Verizon is gradually increasing right behind you at 45 million.
Now, enter Apple. They call you up, telling you that they have a hot new phone that you know is going to sell like hotcakes, and they're offering it to you exclusively. It'll bring new customers to you and it'll make your current customers happy that they have Cingular.
Apple asks for __% of the revenue and to not have the phone available through resellers.
Since you're pretending to be Cingular here...think from their perspective:
What do you have to lose?
If you subscribe to that deal, what's going to happen? Are Cingular customers going to cancel their contracts and go to Verizon because you have the iPhone? No! Of course not! What's the worst that happens? Apple takes some of your money? Okay, big deal. Now look at the POSITIVE. You will get new customers, you will get the spotlight in the media, you will make your current customers happy by having more hot phones available...all for what? Sharing your revenue with this one manufacturer? If it's going to bring you more customers and
happier customers, then it's going to pay off on its own...because happier customers refer their friends, who become happy customers themselves.
Now, if you
don't subscribe to that deal and let it slip away to T-Mobile (for example), what happens? T-Mobile will start grabbing all the attention. Some of your customers will be intrigued and move over to T-Mobile. You will no longer be discussed as the company that has all the cool phones.
You have nothing to lose by adding this phone to your lineup. Nothing. Sure, some resellers will be pissed, but they'll get over it. They already have some 50 phones to stock from your lineup.
You have nothing to lose and yet have so much to gain.
You are giving your customers the CHOICE. As a successful small business owner myself, I can tell you that it's a very good business practice.
The more cell phones and the better cell phones a cellular provider has, the more chances it will get more customers, and happier customers at that.
It's Apple that has the clear advantage here. Every cell phone manufacturer does (because every cell carrier should want the most and best phones on their lineup as possible). It's too bad the cell phone manufacturers willfully gave up their power a long time ago.
