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Verizon Rejected iPhone Deal
SnowDog74 writes "According to an article in USA Today, Verizon Wireless rejected an Apple deal over the iPhone. The article says that Verizon wasn't happy with the strict terms Apple demanded — a Verizon Wireless VP is quoted saying that Apple wanted a cut of monthly revenues and control of the customer relationship. What's perhaps equally interesting, however, is the implication from sources that say Cingular's exclusive 5-year deal with Apple applies within the United States only. If this is true, it undermines some of the criticism Apple has been receiving for their business strategy surrounding the iPhone, given the size of the cell-phone market outside the US."
iGot First Post
Thanks,
Cingular
What's perhaps equally interesting, however, is the implication from sources that say Cingular's exclusive 5-year deal with Apple applies within the United States only.
duh... perhaps Cingular isn't used outside the US (or very much?) They aren't in
Trolling is a art,
Granted, the revenue stream from added features seems to be the principal deal-breaker, but TFA also highlights that Verizon would be cut out of certain customer service decisions. However you feel about the company, they do pride themselves on their customer satisfaction numbers. As a retailer, I found their policies to err on the side of customer benefit.
Apple's terms would have cut out major retailers when it comes to the handset, making it more difficult to retain those retail partners. It also would have taken warranty policy from the carrier to the manufacturer - and the iPhone would be the only handset with this arrangement. I think customers would have hated it, but maybe Apple planned to be more fair. How are they on iPod warranty?
Verizon has been treading lightly with retailers since their split with Radio Shack (over R$ revenue). The separation hurt both companies right off the bat, and the implications of the separation are still developing. If Wal-Mart and Best Buy were cut out of the iPhone deal, they might have such a sour taste that they skip off to Cingular instead.
If Cingular's terms do not exclude third-party retailers, Verizon will suffer anyway.
FairTax baby!
Let's see how Verizon feels at the end of the year when a googazilion iPhones are sold.
That's one hell of an exclusive deal. As much as I hate Cingular and their pricing plans, I'm not sure I can wait five years for other networks to have that phone... especially if they put out a nano-sized version.
Sigh... why oh why can't I have my apple and eat it too?
Ya think this is one of those times like when the guy who didn't sign the Beatles for a record deal? At anyrate, I find it funny that there are statements like free 18 months switching from Verizon to Cinguar with the iPhone. I have no idea if this is true or not, but it would be quite a slap in the face. Maby this will be a wakeup call to the cell phone companies that they are completly clueless about the market they control.
that has no intention of switching to Cingular, iPhone or no, I can believe this. Verizon gives me the best coverage and call quality (which believe it or not is what I value in a cell phone company ;), but they demand total control of their phones and what you put on them in return. Between neutered Bluetooth and very few ways to get anything onto the device short of VCAST, they make Cingular's openness seem pretty tempting. But I've heard too many complaints about Cingular's network to consider switching.
"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
Well there has already been an announcement from a Canadian cell phone company that they will also be carrying the iPhone. You will note too that Apple chose GSM, the European and worldwide standard, as opposed to CDMA, a primarily NA one, for the phone. Does that tell you anything?
People act like the iphone is THE gadget that will ruin all other service providers if they don't have it. Considering its hardly even a smartphone because you can't even add software to it, it seems to be very lacking. Its only major benefit over something like a treo is the size and style of the phone. People need to get a grip. Other cell providers will not be going out of business over this.
Verizon wants to disable EVERYTHING on the phone that isn't pay-per-use. If you were thinking the iPhone was restrictive, think again.
I mean, telling everyone a product you're releasing into a market that has generally been considered the highest of high tech for the last 5 years, then actually using 'High Technology' as the 4th bullet point on the front of the box and all your advertising is pretty stupid. I think the Verizon decision makers probably played out a sales scenerio in their heads between one of their reps and someone like me (I'd imagine a fairly typical Verizon customer), realized it made them look like idiots ("But but, it's HIGH techNOLOGY!!") and decided they'd let the kiddie carriers deal with the kiddie customers.
eff ell aim!
Customer service numbers? They might pride themselves on those numbers, but they are as full of crap as their systems. I'm sorry, any company who has a known issue of the IVR dropping options off of peoples accounts for years, that then decides to not fix the IVR system is not what I would call customer-oriented.
Or how about the fact that they care so much about their customers that they require their call reps to handle anything non-call related in their spare moments between making call quotas? You know, those little things like recalculating bills that have gone awry (see IVR) or filing the paperwork...
My wife worked for Verizon, the only thing they care less about then their customers is their computer systems - except for th mice, those have to be installed by an expert technician. Probably not the same one that installed the fully tested software update that took down your entire department yesterday, cannot be backed out of, and is costing you your paycheck (if your not answering phones, your not earning...)
Yep, customers are number one, provided you qualify that statement as "after everythig else but the computer systems..."
Whee signature.
The problem I've seen with phones that use Qualcomm's IS-95 system (often called CDMA after its physical layer) is that phones for IS-95 often support only Qualcomm's BREW environment, which uses digital signature requirements to shut out developers of shareware, freeware, and free software from porting their software to common IS-95 phones. As I understand it, phones that support GSM are more likely to support Java ME MIDP, which generally allows anybody to compile and run a midlet.
Ah well, the hardware looks great and it's certainly a platform which could handle almost everything you could want from the current generation. Too bad it's going to be on a crappy, slow network run by a company which is gloating about how badly it can treat its customers due to having a monopoly.
Good news: this will make Linux-based phones much better, much sooner.
I'm pretty sure the worst phone company is the one the person you are asking last moved away from, and the best one is whatever they have, unless they think that they all suck.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
As a retailer, I found their policies to err on the side of customer benefit.
Ermm... I had 4 lines on a family plan...We were all happily using our 1800 minutes or whatever, and i was paying 170 or 180 a month. One month, there was a crisis in the family, and the total of calls was quite a bit in excess of our minutes, to the point that my bill was $680... I called customer service and explained the situation, and they said they'ed forward that along with a backdated request to up my minute allotment since i never went over and always paid on time... They said that this was a situation they've had before and that was usually the way that it was remedied... a few days later, i got a call from them that said that billing had determined that it "wasn't in the customers best interest" to do so...
Now, if they had said "sorry, but there's nothing we can do about it" that'd have been one thing... But they said "there is something we do about that" and then turned around and decided NOT to... That has made me one unhappy verizon customer... Of course, I'm sticking with them because my contracts up in June, and guess what comes out then on another network?
So no... I can't see how verizon is a customer service oriented carrier... everything with them is like pulling teeth...
A loathsome company even by teleco standards, they really and truly despise their customers and Microsoft could learn a thing or two about pure rancid evil from them. I've had multiple friends and relatives tell tales of $1000 deposits to get cell phone service from them. That is so far out of proportion to reality it boggles the mind. The ONLY thing they have going for them is that they have better coverage than their competition - but it's not worth it, not even close, and the competition is rapidly catching up to them. All their phones are hobbled with their awful, locked-down software - even if it WASN'T locked down, their software is pure crap. When my contract with them is up, I run far far away, and they never get another dime of my money for anything, ever.
And I can't help but think that I'm not the only person who feels this way. Their customer-hostile antics will eventually bite them in the ass, and I am going to enjoy watching that happen as much as I'd enjoy watching Microsoft implode - maybe more.
Oppressing an entire population is never cheap.
--Jeckler (/. Beta IS GARBAGE!)
by far the world's users who are willing to pay premiums for nice phones reside outside USA. go with verizon, and u'll limit yourself to handful of CDMA countries. go with cingular, and u'll open up nearly every country in europe and asia.
people in USA are too used to these "$49 RAZR" deals that they can't possible imagine paying $499 for the iPhone. european and asian users will. now if we can get Apple to strike deals with SK Telecom or NTT DoCoMo, then u're all set.
Was chatting with the local Cingular store manager and he mentioned that the iPhone is only to be sold from the Apple store. The local store franchises will not be allowed to sell these units.
He was a bit peeved, he's fielding 10 calls a day on the damn thing and just feels the dollars flying down the block to the Apple Store.
In Palo Alto on University Ave.
Might be common knowledge, I was suprised.
The ROKR was a Motorola phone using their OS and an iTunes-branded MP3 player. The mobile version of iTunes was written in Java and is likely completely custom. The ROKR was discontinued and replaced with the SLVR L7, a bar phone version of the RAZR. SLVRs purchased through Cingular or Rogers Wireless in Canada still come with iTunes, although Apple officially stopped supporting it in September and new music purchases won't play back. Phones sold elsewhere come with a Motorola-branded MP3 player instead of iTunes.
Long story short, Apple has yet to sell a single cell phone. Frankly, I'm all with you on the Newton analogy. Once Apple dries up the supply of people who will buy anything with an Apple logo, I don't think the iPhone is going to sell very well at all.