hows it offensive? It gives you the same connectivity as a blackberry. and its still cheaper the unlm BB service ($30). Thats how they got the $10 price point. $5 is definitely not enough, because the prolly didn't want to canibalize any of their BB revenue. At $5 people may have given up their BB's and returned to a regular phone.
There's a reason why verizon is very financially stable. You can't just give stuff away, and be a reputable company (take a look at whats going on over at sprint....) And ATT does the same damn thing.
I guess it offends me because it's one more step away from "openness"...which they claim to be trying to achieve.
There are a number of solutions to do this for free already. This is like VZ Navigator on a smartphone that already has GPS and Google Maps -- a useless feature with equal or better free alternatives...except for Verizon crippling the phone, locking down features, and using their own proprietary stuff that you have to pay more for.
Sure, this will work on not-so-smart phones, but the price point for most of those phones isn't far enough below a low end PDA phone to warrant $10/mo -- at least, so it seems to me without actually doing all the math.
And I disagree about losing Blackberry customers to this. For sheer device functionality, I can't picture anyone who has used a Blackberry being willing to go back a Razr or something. The interfaces just don't cut it.
Plus businesses, who have built IT and security infrastructures around RIM's offerings, most definitely won't give them up for this.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
cwcanty @ Jun 10th 2008 2:27PM
hows it offensive? It gives you the same connectivity as a blackberry. and its still cheaper the unlm BB service ($30). Thats how they got the $10 price point. $5 is definitely not enough, because the prolly didn't want to canibalize any of their BB revenue. At $5 people may have given up their BB's and returned to a regular phone.
There's a reason why verizon is very financially stable. You can't just give stuff away, and be a reputable company (take a look at whats going on over at sprint....) And ATT does the same damn thing.
Miles @ Jun 10th 2008 3:02PM
That's great it costs more so its good for you! Do you work for VZW?
D @ Jun 10th 2008 5:21PM
I guess it offends me because it's one more step away from "openness"...which they claim to be trying to achieve.
There are a number of solutions to do this for free already. This is like VZ Navigator on a smartphone that already has GPS and Google Maps -- a useless feature with equal or better free alternatives...except for Verizon crippling the phone, locking down features, and using their own proprietary stuff that you have to pay more for.
Sure, this will work on not-so-smart phones, but the price point for most of those phones isn't far enough below a low end PDA phone to warrant $10/mo -- at least, so it seems to me without actually doing all the math.
And I disagree about losing Blackberry customers to this. For sheer device functionality, I can't picture anyone who has used a Blackberry being willing to go back a Razr or something. The interfaces just don't cut it.
Plus businesses, who have built IT and security infrastructures around RIM's offerings, most definitely won't give them up for this.