European wireless carriers camping in lines outside Apple offices
You think you were excited about getting your hands on an Apple iPhone? Think how thrilled a country’s wireless carrier would be to get its hands on the iPhone account. Speculation is heating up in advance of an expected announcement. Press reports this morning indicated that O2, owned by Spain’s Telefonica, had all but locked up the deal for the UK contract, beating out Vodafone, but O2, perhaps out of deference to Apple’s master marketing plan, steadfastly refused to confirm the talk. The Times Online said Vodafone reportedly balked at some of Apple’s terms, which reportedly include Apple’s receiving a continuing share of the revenue generated by iPhone users.
Meanwhile, a German paper reported that Deutsche Telekom’s mobile phone unit, T-Mobile, had clinched a deal to handle the iPhone in that country. The frontrunner in France is reportedly France Telecom’s Orange, while Telefonica is expected to be the carrier in Spain. As one mobile industry executive told the Guardian: “The operators are not going to make a packet out of the iPhone. But what it does have is that halo effect — if you have it, you have the reflected glory.”
Part of all these rumors is the belief that Apple is holding off on announcing European partners until it can report one million units sold in the U.S., and according to one source, that means the news should be out any time now. The WaitingForIPhone blog quotes an anonymous staffer in ATT Mobility’s Commerce Group as saying the company has fulfilled more than 1 million iPhone activations since its launch Friday. The source also blamed some of the delays customers ran into trying activate their phones on Apple’s notorious close-to-the-vest style. “Apple has been a pain to work with,” the ATT source was quoted to say. “They were so secretive about the iPhone they only released the final activation API to us the day of the launch. Most people didn’t even know they were activating through ATT with iTunes and not through Apple.” Whatever the launch glitches, they didn’t seem to dampen sales. MacRumors reports that, according to Apple’s online iPhone availability tool, the only Apple stores that still have units in stock are in Pittsburgh, Pa., and Tigard, Ore. Road trip, anyone?
Can I buy an unlocked iPhone in Europe and use it on a faster, non-AT&T network here?
All of us techies owe Steve Jobs a huge thanks. while the attitude of “you’re only as good as your last quarter’s financials” is driving outsourcing and “Fire the engineers and ship the product”, he is proving that continuous innovation makes bottom line money.
And we owe him because he thinks in systems — The Ipod was not just an mp3 player; it launced a billion tunes downloaded from IPod. And now the IPhone is going to earn revenue for Apple from each of the users signed up with the Telco.
And hopefully will convince the Ma Bell companies that all is not NIH and listing nefarious charges on our bills. Just changing that stupid, antimarket mindset will revitalize the phone companies around the world.
The guy sure could be the sole subject of the book “Make no small plans”. He was one of the founders of Silicon Valley and still cranking out inventions, much to the surprise of those who feel that creativity ceases once one passes one’s third decade.
no ROAD TRIP wait a couple of weeks:
isn’T IT