Everyone’s Talking about Carriers dumping the Google Nexus One, not so fast! Turns out this is not true at least in one case. While having a off topic conversation regarding our site with Verizon Executive they ran across a article about ‘Verizon choosing Incredible over The Nexus One’ and pointed it out to our Editor Chris Y. and said “That article is not correct , this story is not true.”
“Verizon never dropped or decided not to pick up the Nexus One,” she said, “it was actually Google who did not make the phone available to Verizon.” And they never cited a reason as to why they did not. Our Chris Y. told her that he thought that “Everyone thought it was Verizon that decided to not go with Google Nexus One because of the HTC Incredible.” She firmly replied, “Not True, we never turned down the Nexus One.” Normally, if this was a customer service agent/representative, this story would not have much credibility, even if someone else had posted such a thing on the internet; easily it would be dismissed. This representative on the other hand is a high level executive that has been with Verizon for over ten years and is a very trustworthy source. Another thing that really puts credit to this story is that the Executive was actually looking at our site and picked out our article, without any prompting from our staff, this was all done on their part and effort. Which of course is greatly appreciated to help increase awareness in the Android, Verizon, and Google world. This was much to our surprise after just releasing a article in regards to Sprint’s announcement about their decision not to carry the Google Nexus One.
“when Sprint’s Michelle Leff Mermelstein told gizmodo.com that the company wouldn’t be selling the Nexus One because of the “upcoming availability of the award-winning Evo 4G,” it didn’t change much for your average user. The Evo, like the Incredible, looks at least as enticing as the Nexus One, and even shares a lot of the same hardware. Where it diverges, Sprint says it’s a “more robust, full-featured device”
Contrary to popular belief, the handset carriers did not abandon Google and their Nexus One, but as they say, every flapjack has two sides and so does this battle of Google’s phone and handset carriers. Why it is exactly that Google did not allow the Nexus One to be available to Verizon remains a mystery, but Engadget even hinted at the possibility that it have been Google’s decision all along, but as a little jab, nothing too serious.
Google created an excellent and beautiful phone that all manufactures and Android users alike longed for without a doubt, though its marketing was a sad failure with the high numbers and projections and hype that Google had created. It seems that Google’s experiment with the new way of buying phone’s is not looking like something that they would attempt again and is still an ongoing nightmare for them and Nexus One owners a like.
One can only wonder as to what exactly the Android Market, not for apps but market for buying Android phones, would look like if the Nexus One has been distributed as most handsets handle such things. What could have been, is and forever will be a question many of us have, especially with all of the many devices and fragmentation in the Android world. We probably will never know why Google chose to offer this phone directly, though with T-Mobile and contract at a discounted price, but never the less Nexus One owners can take pride in owning a phone that has not been marketed to the masses and may even one day be a collector’s edition Android Phone.
Our Chris Y. followed up with Verizon Exec a few days later as this left us both a little baffled and they assured him “it was Google’s decision to pull the Nexus One”. They could not speak for Google and did not want to because of their business relationship which is very understandable. Although from the general conversation we had we took away from it that this may have been a pure business related decision.
See when Google entered the Phone business they did not have the typical manufacturer set up like HTC, Motorola and Samsung and Google considered this being a new way of selling phones and was always considered a experimental new method of selling phones. In order to move these phones in wholesale to the masses they would need to setup a entire division just for phone support and sales and warranty work. Well if you sell a whole lot of phones that turns into a whole lot of staff and the costs associated with it. For a normal company like HTC that is okay, because they have many phones and different handsets and platforms and can justify those costs. Whereas Google with their one phone would have to create a entire division to support this device.
Yes, Google has a lot of finances but at the end of the day they are a business and after the release of the phone I am sure some of head bean counters did a “cost benefit analysis” and was deemed that based on these numbers it may not be a great idea to continue down this path.
This is a just a opinion of what the true motives may be behind Google pulling out from Verizon being a supporting carrier for their Nexus One (It has some fiscal sense and may be a reason why they pulled away from the other carriers as well). I have a hard time believing that all three carriers decided they do not want to carry one the best Android handsets. Yes, they had other handsets on the way but with proper marketing and releases dates they could have easily fit The Nexus One into their already impressive line up.
So the prevalent question remains, why did Google pull the Nexus One off of Verizon’s availability? Did this happen to Sprint too and their comments about the EVO 4G are only a cover up? The Nexus one not debuting on one of the Major Carriers Networks is a huge blow to The Nexus One. Do you think these Carriers would really want to make such waves with Google? The real story here leads to the fact that the Nexus One’s new way of selling phones experiment is over and Google may be getting out of the cellular phone business. Not sure we will hear anything official from Google as it would be admitting failure and not be good for Android and themselves in general. This though a sign that they have closed up shop on the idea of changing how people buy cell phones. Much remains to be seen or known at this point, but it just raises even more question about what we will see at Google’s I/O conference, but hopefully it answers more questions than it raises.