Good Morning Silicon Valley

You don’t hear about it much among all the mushy declarations of undying love, but the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day are littered with the breakups of already shaky relationships. The temporary goodwill and hopeful optimism of the holidays are gone, and there just doesn’t seem to be any point in going through a hearts-and-flowers charade when the embers are cold. So somebody finally says it: “We need to talk.”

That’s what happened when Starbucks sat T-Mobile down on the couch over the weekend and said their six-year Wi-Fi partnership was coming to an end. Starbucks said Monday that beginning this spring, its coffeehouse customers will be able to use both free and paid wireless services from AT&T. Starbucks will give customers that use its Starbucks purchase card two hours of free wireless access per day. After that, it will cost $3.99 for a two-hour session. Monthly memberships will cost $19.99 and include access to any of AT&T’s 70,000 hot spots worldwide. Nearly all of AT&T’s broadband Internet customers will automatically have unlimited free Wi-Fi access at Starbucks. Current T-Mobile HotSpot customers, who pay anywhere from $6 per hour-long session to $9.99 for a day pass to $39.99 a month for unlimited access, will get Wi-Fi access at no extra charge through an agreement between AT&T and T-Mobile. Chris Bruzzo, Starbucks’ chief technology officer, offered the corporate equivalent of “It’s not you, it’s me,” explaining, “Starbucks was at a place where we were evaluating who our right go-forward partners should be, and as we looked at who could provide that in the best possible way, AT&T continuously came back to the front.” (Try using that wording in your next breakup and let me know how it plays.)

T-Mobile may want to share a few comforting pints of Ben and Jerry’s with the backers of the HD DVD format, who were already suffering from low self-esteem (see “If HD DVD has a surge plan, now would be the time“). Online movie rental pioneer Netflix said it’s dropping the format and will go exclusively with rival Blu-ray for its high-definition offerings. In this case, the company’s explanation was sort of a twist on “it’s for the kids.” In a statement, it said, “From the Netflix perspective, focusing on one format will enable us to create the best experience for subscribers.”