Thats right, Verizon, which only got to sell the iPhone earlier this year, is siding against Apple. And that should scare Apple, and the other mobile patent warriors. No software or hardware vendor in the space can be successful out of a larger context. Make enough waves, and some are bound to come sailing back to smack you.
Apple doesnt rule the business
Given the popularity of the iPhone, you might at first think that it would be insane for a carrier to oppose Apple. But thats actually not the case. AT&T (T) did attract and retain a lot of business by having an exclusive on the product. And yet, Verizon managed to remain huge selling Android. (Samsung claims that it has sold 10 million Galaxy S II phones alone.)
In other words, theres much more to success in wireless than selling a particular phone. As much as it astounds the fanboys, there are people who dont like Apple and the iPhone. Just as there are people who hate Android and Google. Who knows? We may eventually find that there are people who are happy to buy a handset running Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Phone.
Verizon wanted the iPhone for strategic considerations. Having it helped retain whatever percentage of their customers might have switched to AT&T to get the product. Most of the ones who would have probably already did. And offering the iPhone lowered a barrier for consumers who insisted on having it but who didnt like AT&Ts service.
Why did Apple make the iPhone available to Verizon? Because the only other choice was to cede all those tens of millions of consumers to the Google clan. And Apple wants to keep a hefty pace of growth. It cant do that restricting itself to the same resellers and their customers. Continued international growth is vital, but much of the low-hanging fruit is gone. Thats a big reason why the AT&T exclusive, which effectively cut Apple off from much of the U.S. market, had to go out the window.
Can you hear them now?
Apple is in a world where it cannot completely set the agenda, no matter how much control it exerts over the operating system, hardware, and delivery of music, video, publications, and software. Thats because the ecosystem still isnt complete. It sits on networks that others own.
