“By the time Apple’s Macworld Expo rolled around in early January, Steve Jobs’ plan to launch a cell phone wasn’t much of a surprise — in fact, the much-blogged-about iPhone was probably the worst-kept secret in technology. The big shocker was his decision to grant a multi-year U.S. exclusive to Cingular, a wireless operator that just a few years ago was one of the wireless industry’s most hapless operators,” Stephanie N. Mehta reports for Fortune.
“Thanks to [various] improvements and its massive customer base — because of its merger activities, Cingular is largest wireless carrier in the country with 58.7 million customers – the company has become the go-to carrier for a number of cool devices. It was the first to introduce the Motorola RAZR in November 2004, and it recently launched Samsung’s drooled-over Blackjack and SYNC phones exclusively in the United States,” Mehta reports.
Mehta reports, “But its biggest ‘get’ to date unquestionably is the iPhone, set to launch in June. Sigman, a veteran of the Bell System, says he got a call at home from Steve Jobs two years ago; Jobs said he wanted to meet to discuss an idea for a phone. Sigman says Jobs was drawn to Cingular because of its size and its reputation as a good partner to device makers.”
Mehta reports, “It didn’t hurt that Sigman was willing to offer Apple some special treatment: Cingular signed on to distribute the device without even seeing a prototype of the phone. ‘I had confidence in Steve that he would deliver on the vision he had,’ Sigman recalls.”
Full article here.
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