When Apple partnered with AT&T in launching the iPhone, it was the unknown factor in mobile markets. And it earned my wrath for cutting a bad deal for customers. Two years later with its gorgeous device and even more impressively, the apps ecosystem it has built around the iPhone Apple is the senior partner in the relationship. Om Malik says AT&T is “desperately addicted” to the iPhone.
While others would love to see Apple establish a competing relationship with Verizon or T-Mobile, I would be ok if Apple extended its relationship with AT&T but drove home its advantage to the benefit of consumers:
Some of the things I would love to see Apple do:
a) Apple should demand tangible proof AT&T is rapidly expanding its 3G capacity – not just in metro areas. It is ironic that Apple has an exclusive with AT&T, but in reverse AT&T can crowd its clogged 3G network with all kinds of other 3G PDAs and increasingly, AirCard traffic via Netbook promotions AT&T is running . Then starting next year, push for similar transparency on the LTE rollout.
b) Keep AT&T from playing games with the App Store. The chicken stuff with Skype could easily be expanded into navigation and a bunch of other apps – crimping a nicely blossoming entrepreneurial ecosystem
c) Knock some sense into AT&T around international voice and data roaming rates. $693.50 per trip for every global traveler hurts Apple’s image - given the locked SIM card in the iPhone which cannot be (legally) replaced when on the road.
d) Deliver price/performance improvements in its plans like Apple has with each generation of the iPhone. AT&T is looking overpriced compared to Boost, MetroPCS and other carriers.
There are plenty of other areas AT&T could improve.
Given its leverage, I hope Apple puts customer ahead of partner interests going forward….
Update: USA Today reports Apple and Verizon may be discussing iPhone for the next-gen LTE network. Nice, but after 8 years of 3G rollout we have poor coverage in the US (Verizon's coverage is better than AT&T but not by much) - how long before LTE is anywhere close in availability?.
Cyber-Security round-up
As the ZDNet video summarizes“clouds” dominated the RSA Conference in San Francisco last week.
As an example, Proofpoint, which offers antivirus, spam filtering, encryption and other security software announced an on-demand Enterprise version at a list of $ 9 per user per year at a 5,000 user level.
Talking of secure mail, the Washington Times reports that the President “has been using a patchwork of two devices, a BlackBerry and an NSA-supplied secure hand-held device known as Sectera Edge …which must be plugged into the presidential BlackBerry, making its use more cumbersome than a secure BlackBerry.” And much more expensive as I wrote earlier. The secure Berry is expected later in the year.
And talking of the Feds, Laef Olson, CIO of RightNow, wrote earlier in a guest column about their certification by the DoD.
April 26, 2009 in Industry Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)