AT&T an exclusive carrier for Windows Phone 7
We are learning that AT&T will be the only game in town (carrier wise) for the Windows Phone 7 U.S. launch. The Wall Street Journal reports that AT&T will kick things off by announcing three Windows Phone 7 devices on October 11, 2010 and having them on the shelf on November 8, 2010. Confidence remains high that the HTC Mondrian, Samsung Cetus and LG Optimus 7 will be those three.
Not exactly ground breaking news but it is just one more confirmation of time table Windows Phone 7 is on. Our guess is that T-Mobile will get into the mix later this year and all indications still have CDMA phones surfacing some time next year.
This will put AT&T in an interesting situation. They have the iPhone, a strong Blackberry and Android presence, as well as a few Nokia and Palm phones in their smartphone line-up. If our math is correct, when you add in the exclusive period to offer Windows Phone 7 AT&T will be the only U.S. carrier to offer all the smartphone systems under one roof.
It will be interesting to see how Windows Phone 7 will match up against the other systems but could AT&T's stacked deck hurt initial sales of Windows Phone 7?
via: infosyncworld
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I think it's bad and it will hurt sales. ATT is full of iPhone dummies. Think many of them will switch (unless MS pulls a fast one and puts an Apple logo on their boxes)?
Who's quickly rising to the top right now? Android. Where can you get Android? Anywhere.
And aren't those all slate phones with no keyboard? Ugh. The Lexicon or whatever it's called will be out on Verizon sooner or later, and that has a TP2-like keyboard and the very mature Android platform. Where will I go...?
cenkaetaya says:
I am on ATT, and i cant WAIT for wp7, but ... i dont like any of these 3 phones they are releasing on Att.
I want a high end phone that will last me anther two years, not some limited capacity no micro cd card slow junk.
This is good for AT&T and probably not so good for Microsoft. They want, they NEED to gain wide acceptance and compete with the iPhone and Android. This is not the way to do it. Not by a long shot.
As a T-Mobile customer, I want a WP7 phone, but I don't like AT&T. So I guess I'll have to wait.
I hope this is not how it's going to be.
If it is, I'd say MS is f#%@ from the start.
Reports that Sony Ericsson and Dell are making high-end WP7 handsets, so if you don't like the lackluster launch phones, there should be better ones around the corner.
Sony Ericsson could make a WP7 version of its Android-based Xperia X10. Wait and see. Wait for those higher-end phones to arrive.
Stupid is as stupid does. Lets see I have a choice between a an ugly low res blackberry devices (Torch), a gimped android device with carrier restrictions galore (Captivate), a windows phone 7 device that's at least year (if not two years) behind in IOS (Multitasking and such), or an Iphone 4. Well folks I think the choice is obvious to the average consumer. Let's not forget the fact that every other carrier is pushing Android devices. I think this puts the final nail into the coffin of MSFT mobile initiatives.
Mass market adoption and low cost high end devices is the only way they can gain any traction. Not carrier exclusive bullshit.
CDMA Phones in early 2011 better mean January or February. It's a good thing the launch phones are ho-hum or I might have been tempted to switch.
The hits just keep on coming at Microsoft. I wanted to buy a new WP7. But nooooo! Microsoft decided that CDMA phones would have to wait until next year sometime.
Now to learn that AT&T will have an "exclusive" selling period??? WTF Microsoft, have you completely lost your marbles??? What benefit can Microsoft possibly accrue by providing an "exclusive" period for AT&T??
Oh I get it. By radically limiting sales of WP7, it will create such a pent up demand that sales will just explode sometime in the future when people no longer give a #$!@ about WP7. Right. I now understand the brilliant marketing strategy. NOT.
