Verizon chief makes stunning iPhone comment
If you haven’t seen it yet, The Register has an amazing story with a quote from Verizon president Denny Strigl:
“Verizon Communications president and chief operating officer Denny Strigl said: “The iPhone product is something we are happy we aren’t the first to market with.”
I’m not sure what we can add to this, especially considering Cingular was apparently happy to get onboard despite the dismal Rokr that came out of their last partnership with Apple and the fact that Apple had nothing but some sketches to convince them of the iPhone’s potential.
It seems crazy to imagine a company believing they have nothing to gain from a partnership with Apple. Jobs essentially offered Verizon the opportunity to be one of the driving forces behind potentially another iPod-caliber success, and in the current me-too mobile phone market, having something unique and exclusive could go a long way in convincing people to switch.
Filed under: iPhone News
Ummm the ROKR was a motorola product…Apple just gave them iTunes access. Apple had nothing to do with developing the hardware.
Which is why the hardware sucked. Yes, it was made by Motorola, but it was supported and marketed by Cingular.
That’s sort of the point of saying that it’s interesting that Apple and Cingular/AT&T are partnering up again.
First, as has been pointed out, the “dismal Rokr” had nothing from Apple in it except for the iTunes Store core. Apple did not do the UI, the hardware, or any subsystems. Get that straight, please! Motorola knows how to make sucky user interfaces, and this is amply demonstrated over and over. Apple did not participate AT ALL in the design of the phone.
Now, to Verizon. This is the same Verizon that required phone manufacturers to cripple Bluetooth functionality before they were allowed on Verizon’s network. The same Verizon that has the most ugly and restrictive terms of service for their broadband contract (no streaming audio or video allowed, no VoIP allowed, secret monthly download limits to their “unlimited” broadband service, etc).
I could drone on, but it seems to me that Verizon itself is basically out of step with what consumers want and need, and is willing to admit that they are philosophically incompatible with the new iPhone user interface and features.
How is this bad?? Cingular is willing to step up and say that they will adapt to and welcome a completely new paradigm that Apple is offering, and Verizon says “no, we want more control over our users’ connectivity, so go away!”
Strigl’s statement is a clear demonstration of Verizon’s continuing lack of vision and understanding of the future, and again shows that they actually fear ideas that were not invented within the walls of their headquarters.
And this is why Apple and Cingular will deservably win and Verizon will ultimately fail and correspondingly experience a smaller market share, all because of their inflexibility to give the user what they want.
As Dave A. details, this is just another example of Verizon management’s seriously draconian and authoritarian corporate mindset. Their antics, once you are familiar with them, manage to make Microsoft look benevolent in comparison; not an easy feat!