Posted on 04/28/2012 7:34:50 AM PDT by SmokingJoe
AT&T and Verizon Wireless want Windows Phone smartphones to succeed in the U.S., partly to provide leverage against Apple's demands for subsidies and other concessions required for selling the popular iPhone.
AT&T recently began selling the Nokia Lumia 900 with the Windows Phone 7 operating system for a competitive $99.99 price. Meanwhile, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo recently told Reuters that Verizon is "really looking at the Windows Phone 8.0 platform because that's a differentiator."
Both carriers need a strong competitor -- like Windows Phone -- to go up against the iPhone and Android phones, analysts said. The wireless carriers could then tell Apple that they can sell quality smartphones that don't cost the carriers as much as the iPhone to subsidize. The iPhone sells well but also eats into carrier profits because of the subsidy and related costs.
"Mobile operators are sick of taking orders from Apple, [which is one] reason why carriers like AT&T and Verizon are backing Windows Phone," said Yankee Group analyst Katie Lewis in a blog posted Wednesday. "IPhones are occupying an increasingly dangerous share of operators' smartphone sales," she wrote.
In 2011, iPhones were half of AT&T's smartphone sales -- totaling about 16 million iPhones -- while Verizon has seen a strong surge recently in the same direction, Lewis noted. "The companies' fears of an Apple takeover are growing stronger," she added, partly because customer surveys show an increase in future buyers interested in owning an iPhone.
Apple's demands for subsidies in order for a carrier to sell an iPhone are legendary. U.S. carriers heavily subsidize all smartphone hardware, primarily to entice new customers to buy a two-year service contract that costs more than $1,700 over that period.
(Excerpt) Read more at pcworld.com ...
I like the Zagg screen protectors. A little pricey at first, but lifetime free replacements. They have ones a little undersized to fit phones in cases, which is what you want.
Windoze Phone = Cheap Plastic. Loaded with bloatware. Viruses abounding. Why buy a knockoff when you can buy the real thing? Ever? Windoze will only hurt Droid, the other cheap plastic knockoff. iPhone will continue to innovate, create and dominate.
In a thread with some pretty stupid posts from the usual mindless, unthinking, Apple fan-girl zombies, yours easily takes the prize for sheer idiocy, and lack of any sense whatsoever. Congratulations, mate!
Apart from useless crap from Apple? When did a cell phone carrier's logo (the guys that actually provide you with the phone service), become "useless crap" then? Answer: When Apple decided to make a power grab for themselves and fatten their bottom lines.
They should be so lucky. No one, but no one, even comes close to Apple when it comes to dictating policy to others about their products. The phone companies now know that, after their bitter experiences with Apple.
I don’t know. All I use a phone for is texting, emailing, browsing, and of course calling. I compared an iPhone and a Droid (HTC Thunderbolt). Chose the Droid because I liked the slightly bigger screen for browsing. If it meets all my needs, what does it really matter if it’s a “cheap plastic knockoff”?
My 2006 Ford Five Hundred is, I’m sure, a “cheap plastic knockoff” of some better car somewhere, but it gets me from here to there in comfort and it’s paid off. So again, what does it really matter, except to me?
With high speed wi-fi being turned on everywhere will we need wireless carriers so much in the future? Computer technology generally gets 10% cheaper every year but carriers are not passing that on, instead opening expensive brick and mortar retail stores everywhere. Carrier hirelings act a lot like government hirelings. It's become an expensive bloated industry that needs to go.
As an object lesson, the wildly successful Apple Store had its genesis not in any strong desire on the part of Apple to get into retail, it came of necessity due to existing players in the retail channel treating them poorly.
A tightly controlled user experience is part and parcel of just why Apple products work so well and in turn sell so well. Bellyaching about one’s top selling products in a public way is potentially counterproductive.
This is especially so when dealing with a company with the market cap of Apple, and when dealing with a company that has made a mantra out of improving their user experience, middlemen be damned. Look to the music industry, largely disintermediated now, their high margin CD business rendered practically irrelevant.
Look no further than Adobe dragging its feet on Flash compatibility with the touchscreen interface, only to be unceremoniously dumped for HTML 5. I can tell you, being an iPad user with no add on app for Flash, that content relying upon it is getting very infrequent. Adobe killed their own cash cow.
It can happen again, and I can't think of too many cell carriers that engender any sort of affection or attachment whatsoever, unlike Apple.
Do you see what I mean yet?
Yes, because there are(and still will be) vast tracts of this country outside the cities that are not covered by wifi.
“Computer technology generally gets 10% cheaper every year but carriers are not passing that on”
Try a no contract phone with MetroPCS, T-Mobile, Cricket, Virgin Mobile, NET10, TRACFONE (11), Jitterbug, etc. You'd be surprised how really cheap they are.
Again, the phone companies should be so lucky. Every single phone company that has the iPhone, has lost market value since they got the iPhone on their networks, due to the massive amounts they have to pay Apple(Apple reportedly collects as much as massive $600 per iPhone user in royalties from the carriers, on top of the hardware profits from the phones).
“As an object lesson, the wildly successful Apple Store had its genesis not in any strong desire on the part of Apple to get into retail, it came of necessity due to existing players in the retail channel treating them poorly”
I love my service(and the great rates) from T-Mobile. Significantly, they don't carry the iPhone.
“A tightly controlled user experience is part and parcel of just why Apple products work so well and in turn sell so well”
The widespread Mac botnet and the notorious antennaegate scandal with the iPhone 4 beg to differ.
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Mac-Botnet-Infects-More-Than-600000-Apple-Computers-699749/
http://mashable.com/2012/02/18/antennagate-iphone-settlement/
“Do you see what I mean yet?”
Nope.
My goodness, accusations of a botnet, gasp! That’ll have them screaming back to Redmond. /s
I said “a Mac.” Compare a MacBook to a laptop with Windows pre-installed that you buy from Best Buy. All kinds of garbage pre-installed on the Windows laptop, and a bunch of tacky stickers all over it. The MacBook is clean, and unencumbered by junkware.
And there is no reason for the cell service provider to have their logo on the phone. You should be able to change carriers, anyhow.
I have my iPhone in an OtterBox Defender. Screen protectors do interfere a bit with some functions of the iPhone, like the thing that detects when you have the phone up to your face, disabling the phone buttons (like mute), but all-in-all, I like it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.