“Verizon Communications Inc has chosen Microsoft Corp to provide Internet search services for cell phones, in what is seen as a blow to rivals Google Inc and Yahoo Inc,” Ritsuko Ando and Sinead Carew report for Reuters.
MacDailyNews Take: Alternate headline: Microsoft pays Verizon more than would Google or Yahoo
Ando and Carew continue, “‘Microsoft really needed to win that,’ Nielsen’s head of telecom research, Roger Entner, said about the Verizon deal. ‘It gives them a good fighting chance. Otherwise they would have been almost insurmountably behind Google’ in mobile search.”
“However, the deal was not likely to change how many Verizon Wireless customers use their phones to surf the Web, Jackson said,” Ando and Carew report.
MacDailyNews Take: Because Verizon blew it and lost Apple’s iPhone. That, coupled with this idiotic choice, shows that there’s just not a very bright crew over there making decisions at Verizon.
Q: “Would you like to (1) have the revolutionary iPhone or (2) parade through an unending stream of substandard knockoffs that your marketing department will have to try to foist off on ignorant customers?
Verizon: We’ll take #2, please (our customers aren’t that bright; they’ll never know the difference) and a punch in the face for good luck.
Q: “Would you like to (1) have the world’s dominant search leader, Google, or (2) the world’s #2, Yahoo!, or (3) the one nobody uses along with the constant phone calls from the goofy, sweaty, chair-hurling, dancing, screaming, cursing monkey boy?
Verizon: Obviously, we’ll have to go with #3 and a kick to the groin while you’re at it.
Q: “Would you like for your company to (1) be associated with the clear leaders and innovators in both mobile devices and mobile search or (2) be linked inextricably to a bunch of derivative knockoff device makers and a third-rate search product from a company renowned for bloated software, user frustration, hardware failures, and wholesale idea theft?
Verizon: Gee, that’s a hard one. Uh, #2?
Ando’s and Carew’s full article is here.
The rumor is that MS is paying Verizon over $500M for a 5-year deal.
Imagine what they would have had to pay Apple for the iPhone to use MS Live search instead of Google?
Strange that they make it sound like MS won Verizon’s business or was chosen, when in fact, MS paid.
Did they just reprint MS’s press release?
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizons-Open-Development-Initiative-So-Far-Its-A-Joke-100102?nocomment=1
Verizon’s Open Development Initiative? So Far It’s A Joke
It seems that Verizon answered, not the MDN questions above, but questions 4 and 5.
Q4: How much would you like to subsidize the revolutionary iPhone?
(Alternate headline: ATT pays Apple more money than would Verizon or Sprint)
Q5: How small a slice of the search revenue would you settle for to make Google your default search engine?
Note: This is how ATT answered Q5:
“Our customers want mobile search to be convenient and intuitive, and Yahoo oneSearch is an important step for us in delivering that level of experience to them,” said Michael Bowling, ATT’s VP of converged services, said in a statement.
@OMG, business is about money!!!
“Q4: How much would you like to subsidize the revolutionary iPhone?
Q5: How small a slice of the search revenue would you settle for to make Google your default search engine?”
*****
As for “Q4”, Verizon gave the stupid answer, since the iPhone proved to be so much more popular than they, presumably, anticipated. They lost out on what they could have made.
As for “Q5”, MSN search isn’t as good as Google search, so don’t expect Google to pay you as much as Microsoft would. Are Verizon being stupid here, too? IOW, are they going to drive customers away because the search they’re offering, being its from MSN, is inferior? Perhaps. I don’t know.
@ Well
1. Why post about this if you do not have an iPhone? Where I live, AT&T;service was bad a few years ago (Cingular) – but you know what? Now it is just as good as Verizon and they are both purely digital signals now. A lot of anti-AT&T;sentiment comes from people who had Cingular or AT&T;a few years ago. Demo an AT&T;phone where you live and see how your coverage is TODAY, not a few years ago.
@everyone
The Blackberry/Crackberry Storm and its ilk are especially tied to Verizon who can’t muster ANY innovation to compete with the iPhone. Seriously, you mean that no major cell phone manufacturer or carrier can make a phone that is as good as the iPhone? Wow, that is sad, and its been 1.5 years or more now.
I’ve said before and I’ll say again, Verizon’s cell division is separate from the rest of Verizon and for good reason, they do not want to risk taking down the old ma bell that is still chugging along and bringing in new products like FIOS which is a great service by the way.
Verizon + Microsoft = the end is near for Verizon, not a good sign. Why exclusive your search engine to any one company? Stupid. Heads will roll, big layoffs, and big AT&T;conversions.
@jdoc
NOBODY wants Microsoft to win control of ANY more markets…
…and paying $500 million is not ‘fairness’ it’s called buying the market.
I have Verizon because I get 20% from work, but I hate their crippled phones and their shitty calling plans. However, I just got me an iphone and I unlocked it, so now I’m taking off to Tmobile.
Screw you verizon!!!
If that isn’t the best reason to drop Verizon then I don’t know what is!
You jerkoffs cant form a complete sentence let alone come to an objective well written article. What a bunch of dicks you guys are.
@Crash
“You jerkoffs cant form a complete sentence let alone come to an objective well written article. What a bunch of dicks you guys are.”
Nice language. Did you learn that in your doctoral program? The word “cant” is actually spelled can’t – with an apostrophe. “Come to an objective well written article” is also improper english. Maybe when you are done with your tantrum, about g/d knows what, you can post something that we can understand.
Microsoft knows how capitalism works. I’m a staunch conservative. They’re ALL crooks. Some crooks are just smarter/more crooked than others. It’s too late for the USA. I came here in the late 50s, I wouldn’t come in today’s environment. But then, England is turning Muslim, so I’m screwed. Ah well, I don’t have much longer anyway. I think I’ll buy that new Powerbook.
Don’t any of verizon’s phones have a web browser? Surely people can ‘pick’ their own search engine? Or are they so completely dim witted that they won’t, and whatever verizon makes the default will remain so?
Whooo Ive got me one of you dicks to take the bait. Man is this the best you got, Grammer Police? Please give me something to get worked up over.
der almost dead fuher is so proud of you.
Something smells like rotten cabbage and in a used jock strap…must be Crash.