I am just old enough to remember when a consumer could purchase their own phone and plug it into the RJ11 jack in the wall. Prior to that obviously you had to rent the phone from the telco. This was a major shift that lead to the eventual open telecom market we have today. This was a small but significant change that has parallel to the market today. RIM (Blackberry) CEO Jim Balsillie shrugged his shoulders this weekend over the iPhone and feels strongly it will have no impact on the business user that RIM focuses on… or will it:
Perhaps more important, Apple is also eager to change the way smart phones are sold and marketed by wresting control of consumer experience from wireless carriers – a strategy that could either force RIM to revise its approach or reinforce a key competitive advantage.
They go on to say:
He is also intensely critical of what appears to be an effort by Apple to wrest control of the customer experience in the consumer market. For example, the iPhone is being sold through Apple’s own stores, instead of strictly through AT&T Inc., which signed an exclusive U.S. deal with the computer maker. The phone is free of AT&T’s logo and software and is tied closely to Apple’s iTunes music store, which is where subscribers will need to go to activate their phones and browse rate plans. “It’s a dangerous strategy,” says Balsillie. “It’s a tremendous amount of control. And the more control of the platform that goes out of the carrier, the more they shift into a commodity pipe.”
Of course this is exactly where Apple wants to head down by minimizing the pipe and maximizing the experience and they have managed to get AT&T to work with them. We may be looking at a fundamental shift in the carrier/consumer balance of power and a tailsman for the future of mobile devices. The last time it happen it worked out tremendously well for the consumer….
