“We’ve heard numerous times that the Nokia Lumia 900 will be a ‘hero’ device for AT&T, a term that is unfamiliar for many who are not in the business of smartphones,” Daniel Rubino reports for wpcentral. “Here, the usage refers to AT&T promoting the Lumia 900 on the level of the Apple iPhone meaning we should expect a very intensive media campaign for the flagship Nokia device and it taking center stage on one of the largest carriers in the US.”
“One way to do that is to put the phone in the hands of those on the front lines — the sales reps at the AT&T stores,” Rubino reports. “AT&T has designated the Nokia Lumia 900 for ‘Company Use’ meaning all Front Seller employees are eligible to receive the phone at no cost. The trade off is though is that employees have to turn in their current ‘Company Use’ phones, namely the iPhone and certain Android devices.”
Rubino reports, “You read that right: Nokia is paying, we hear up to $25 million, for AT&T employees to exclusively use the Lumia 900 instead of the iPhone and Android.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Can’t generate share on the merits of your devices and so-called platform? Bribe the salespeople. Ballmer should be very familiar with that “strategy.” Spiff away, clown!
Bottom line: The fake iPhone called “Android” gets hurt, not the phone that everybody lines up for, year after year, regardless of whichever phone’s on the AT&T store posters or in the pockets of the pimply-faced sales clerks this season.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
This is the cheapest campaign ever. It will cost $0 because no one will change.
Great idea ATT. Piss off your sales force.
What’s with these would-be Apple competitors? So chronically arrogant five years ago in their “old ways” that they didn’t bother to predict the iPhone’s potential impact and eventual dominance, and now so dysfunctional and effete in coming up with any system which is even comparable to much less better than Apple’s that they resort to blatant bribery?
It just goes to show how incompetent Nokia’s (and by association MS’s) management (leadership) is.
Look at it this way; Nokia is possibly worse than RIM in doing a death spiral on sales into a very dark hole.
Management is panicked, like a drug dealer who’s just been nabbed.
What can you do? Try to buy a lifeline out of your self-imposed sink hole one way or another.
Attrition will exceed $25 million.
MS can’t pay me to turn in my AT&T company use iPhone! I will use my personal iPhone if I’m forced to switch phones and I will forward all my work calls to my own iPhone.
I am actually hoping for the Lumia to be a success. As the take says, it damages Android (i.e. Samsung) far more than it does Apple. People either want iPhones or they want something cheaper or hate Apple and want something else that they pretend is better. The Lumia will just go into the “something else” category all with all other Androids.
I agree. I would prefer that Nokia be #2 with some success, than the stealing Eric daMole and Android copycat thiefs.
This is Nokia employing a Microsoft tactic. A classic example of a former Microsoft stooge now at the helm of Nokia transferring his 1990s corporate “knowledge.”
Microsoft and Nokia are like the emperor and Darth Vader. Both are doomed in the end.
I wonder if Microsoft isn’t footing the bill.
Is it a sign that Windows Phone really sucks when people have to be paid to use it? Nah… Of course not…
I wonder how Microsoft expects it to succeed. They can pay Nokia to adopt it, Nokia can pay AT&T to adopt it, but who’s going to pay consumers to adopt it?
It’s amusing to watch Microsoft try to buy their way into new markets. They should get tips from the New York Yankees on what kind of success ratio they can expect from that tactic. (And it’d be fun to figure out who is Microsoft’s A-Rod.)
I’t’ll be free after rebate.
If the wording of the original article is accurate, use of the Lumia 900 will not be mandatory. The $0 cost is the come-on.
So what is likely to happen is that a few AT&T sales reps will opt for the free phone, find out that it sucks, and warn everyone else at the company to avoid it like the plague.
Nokia is hoping that 80% of the AT&T folks will use their phone. I’m betting it will be closer to 8%.
FYI, Verizon forced its sales force to take iPhones. I assume to break them from their Andriod bias
I would laugh but it is pitiful. Just pitiful.