They must have had a gun to their head. Only duress could explain why they would offer the iPhone.
By the way, the FUD isn't a volume commitment per se, it is the spin that a volume commitment is burdensome because the iPhone has lost its mojo and isn't delivering its part of the bargain. The carriers aren't saying that.
Gassée's article points out reasons for the carrier's complaints. In a nutshell, they have a commodity product that they need to sell more of.
We saw the process at work in a December 2011 WSJ article titled How the iPhone Zapped Carriers, a devotional piece that makes the key points in the carriers’ incessant complaint:
Carriers do all the grunt work while handset makers and software developers take all the money.
The $400 subsidy per iPhone (and now a similar amount for its best competitors as well) is clearly excessive and must stop. We need a new business model to account (to monetize) the shift from voice to voracious use of data.
Let’s rewind the tape.Once upon a time, there was The Way of The Carrier. Verizon, Sprint, AT&T treated handsets makers the way a supermarket chain treats yogurt suppliers: We’ll tell you the flavors and quantities we want to carry, we’ll set the delivery schedule, dictate the marketing/branding arrangements, define the return privileges and, of course, we’ll let you know what we want to pay for your product — and when we want to pay it. |
