I loved that headline at The Register so much I had to use it here too

excerpt:

‘No one can take our customers’
By Bill Ray → More by this author
Published Monday 19th November 2007 17:04 GMT

Arun Sarin has told the FT that he has nothing to fear from Apple’s iPhone/iTunes combination, or Google’s Android, or even Nokia’s Ovi, as no one can ever take their customers’ billing relationship away from them.
Network operators have long felt no one could compete in providing services to their customers - they have the billing relationship, so they control how much their customers are charged, and for what.

For many years that was the case, but since failing entirely to take advantage of that relationship they have allowed a raft of competitors to create their own connections to customers - something Mr. Sarin appears not to have noticed.
“The simple fact that we have the customer and billing relationship is a hugely powerful thing that nobody can take away from us,” he says, describing this as a “unique gift”.

“Unique gift” is right. Vodafone gave Apple a “unique gift” by screwing up their negotiations and letting O2 steal the deal on fantastic terms for Apple.

Arun Sarin is a complete git. He let Verizon screw it up in the US, and he did the same thing with Vodafone in Europe. And now he’s bravely trying to whistle past the graveyard. Talk about living in the past.

Guess what Arun? Apple has a “billing relationship” with its customers too, via iTunes. And its a relationship people love. Unlike the one they have with you (and other mobile telcos), which they universally hate.

And that’s why the iPhone activation is via iTunes, as is content management.

Hasta la vista you old dinosaur.

Link to The Register

This is the same guy who said iPhone was a “lousy experience”. Unclear whether he was talking about the negotiations with Apple (possible) or the phone itself (wtf?). In either case, he’s a sore loser with much to lose worldwide (Vodaphone also owns 45% of Verizon in the U.S.—which also lost out to AT&T).

Re: Vodafone CEO sticks head in sand, goes ‘La la la’

[quote author=“Tommo_UK”]
“The simple fact that we have the customer and billing relationship is a hugely powerful thing that nobody can take away from us,” he says, describing this as a “unique gift”.

Thanks, Tommo.  This piece is revealing to the casual reader and confirmation for readers of AFB. 

The choice of words is revealing too.  Apple has no unique gifts, only hard-earned value.

Vodeodo’s action against T-Mobile in Germany should keep world attention focused on the iPhone and the hypocrisy of Vodephone, which also sells phones that are linked to their service. If German law regarding cell contracts is so easily broken, how come no one has challenged it in the past?

[quote author=“willrob”]Vodeodo’s action against T-Mobile in Germany should keep world attention focused on the iPhone and the hypocrisy of Vodephone, which also sells phones that are linked to their service. If German law regarding cell contracts is so easily broken, how come no one has challenged it in the past?

I’m loving this, just loving it! Since when has any carrier in history sued another in order to be allowed to sell a phone?

Fresh in (thanks IV Board):

T-Mobile said on Wednesday it will offer the iPhone without a T-Mobile contract for 999 euros at its shops.

T-Mobile has an exclusive deal with Apple to sell the iPhone in Germany, where Apple has no stores. Until now, customers had to sign up to a 24-month T-Mobile contract costing a minimum of 1,176 euros ($1,740) in order to buy the 399-euro phone.

A German court granted Vodafone a preliminary injunction this week preventing T-Mobile from locking the iPhone’s SIM card to T-Mobile when making a sale.

Excellent. So that’s $1500 for an unlocked iPhone. I reckon that gets split $400 for the phone to Apple, and with the remaining $1100 split 50/50 between Apple and T-Mobile. Its like getting paid 2 years’ worth of subscriber revenue sharing all at once

When the phone launched, Vodaphone must have received a ton of inquiries. He is only taking these actions “for his customers”.

So we now have our first officially unlocked iPhone. I assume you can buy these and sign up with any telco in Germany, but what’s stopping people from buying in UK or France and activating in Germany?

OT: This could speed up the process for entering the Chinese market.

[quote author=“howzat”]So we now have our first officially unlocked iPhone. I assume you can buy these and sign up with any telco in Germany, but what’s stopping people from buying in UK or France and activating in Germany?

UK phones are locked to O2. You will be able to buy an unlocked phone in France, on Orange, when they go on sale there next Friday.

Just why anyone in their right mind would want to pay 999 Euros (almost $1500) is beyond me though. Go ahead, knock yourself out - nothing could be better for AAPL than unlocked iPhones being bought for $1500. As I said in my earlier post, its like getting 2 years’ of subscriber revenue sharing in one go

[quote author=“Tommo_UK”]Fresh in (thanks IV Board):

T-Mobile said on Wednesday it will offer the iPhone without a T-Mobile contract for 999 euros at its shops.
...

More info from here (in German) :

iPhone’s bought till now can be unlocked and removed from the contract by paying the difference, but they will then be no longer usable at T-Mobile EDGE network or WiFi spots.

The unlocked iPhone for 999Ђ will be only available until a final resolution at court.

Could this produce an unexpected surge of iPhone sales in Germany? 

As I’ve probably posted too many times, I see deep legal problems in attempting to ban the linkage of the iPhone activation with a specific service contract. It implies that consumers can take the part of any offer they like, and discard the part they don’t like - hence it would destroy the basis of all legal contracts. Yes, it’s possible to enforce unlocking of cellphones, because locking can represent an unfair exclusion beyond the scope of the product/service offer. I continue to believe the “worst” possible outcome for Apple is that European iPhones will be available unlocked (at a price), but probably not off-contract.

Of course the temporary Ђ999 situation is effectively no different. Effectively you can pay for your service contract up front but sacrifice all the benefits. Attractive only to very heavy roaming users.

Once the legal issue is resolved, it would not surprise me to see all European iPhones supplied unlocked, if the contract/activation link can be preserved.

I can’t wait until the iPhone hackers get their hands on an unlocked iPhone - they’ll extract the relevant code in nano-seconds and reverse-engineer it. The unlocking phenomenon is about to reach a whole new level, along with iPhone sales.

I see this as great news. People who are tied into an existing contract will be able to get an unlocked iPhone to use on their existing contract. When the iPhone 2.0 is released, and they’re at the end of their contract, they will be natural upgraders to the new iPhone and the legitimate partner carrier.

Win/win for Apple IMO, no matter how this pans out.

[quote author=“Tommo_UK”]
Just why anyone in their right mind would want to pay 999 Euros (almost $1500) is beyond me though. Go ahead, knock yourself out - nothing could be better for AAPL than unlocked iPhones being bought for $1500. As I said in my earlier post, its like getting 2 years’ of subscriber revenue sharing in one go

I agree the price is ridiculous, although it’s still cheaper than the 1575 Euro minimum you have to pay to pay for a locked iPhone on a contract. I just find it interesting that we now have ‘legal’ unlocked iPhones in the market (even if it is temporary and the price is somewhat prohibitive).

[quote author=“Tommo_UK”]I can’t wait until the iPhone hackers get their hands on an unlocked iPhone - they’ll extract the relevant code in nano-seconds and reverse-engineer it. The unlocking phenomenon is about to reach a whole new level, along with iPhone sales.

I see this as great news. People who are tied into an existing contract will be able to get an unlocked iPhone to use on their existing contract. When the iPhone 2.0 is released, and they’re at the end of their contract, they will be natural upgraders to the new iPhone and the legitimate partner carrier.

Win/win for Apple IMO, no matter how this pans out.

So do you see the hackers ultimately winning over Apple, Tommo? If so why? I don’t believe the hackers can be sure of winning in principle, even though Apple has a tough task keeping them out. Right now, my inclination is that Apple will be back in control within the next month or two, and hactivated iPhones will be a minority, unable to be updated with new Apple firmware.

But it’s all great publicity for iPhone. Perhaps not so good for revenue sharing.

And can I just say to Apple here: “Thank you for being interesting, whatever the outcome.”

MOrning all,

In my opinion this sounds like it would hamper some iPhone sales just because of the hassle….however the few people that will be buying the $1500 version will be offsetting the non buyers roughly 2 to 1 right? If you recall ebay was flooded with iPhones here in the US and in the first few weeks phones were selling for ridiculous amounts. Some people dont care about price when they really want something bad enough.

One good thing I see right now will be the immediate added cash to the qrtrs bottomline. Also Vodaphone is just going to be making non vodaphone users pissed off and in the end they are the ones who will be getting screwed even harder. They are just admitting how scared they are of losing their customer base to switchers.