Verizon Wireless Says "Come Play"
Source: andyabramson.blogs.com
Funny how much influence Google and Nokia can have on the likes of a Verizon Wireless…that was the gist of a chat with TechCraver’s Jason Harris and I as well as subtext of a discussion with a few other people this morning after the news of Verizon Wireless’ version of Open Skies came to light, complete with a major PR push that they have unleashed.
Could it be they simply were trying to get ahead of AT&T which rumor has it is announcing a similar push behind their own developer initiative real soon?
I look at this as Verizon and Vodafone moving more in the direction of playing catch up with the GSM players in the areas of handsets arena first. One of the best indications is the fact that I now see WiFi on the Windows Mobile Smartphones like the Samsung i760, which also has the ability to connect over the Verizon Wireless Broadband access network.
To me this means that the idea of BYOD (bring your own device) is coming. This also likely has some significant implications towards Qualcomm, which for years has been the technology partner for Verizon, as well as Lucent. With Alcatel-Lucent very much in the AT&T camp, as well as Orange, this could be a very big win for Qualcomm if they play their hand the right way, or it could be a big win for someone else. The domino effect of this is lengthy and we have not yet seen the second domino to fall as this also may have some roots in the proposed future development of LTE by the 3GPP organization.
With respect to Google and Nokia, both have openly announced network initiatives. That meant Verizon either plays with them, or makes them the enemy. So by making this move now Verizon Wireless says to them and others "come play" here versus losing their users (which is starting to happen already) to the other more "open" networks.
Rich Tehrani has some additional perspective with his post.
