AT&T gets exclusive iPhone extension
August 2nd 2008
USA Today is running an article / interview with AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson vis-a-vis the iPhone. For me at least, the only meat in this fairly lengthy piece is the news that AT&T's exclusive lock on the iPhone in the US has been extended from 2009 until 2010.
Under the original iPhone contract, Apple had the right to offer the device to other carriers beginning in 2009. If Apple exercised that clause, AT&T would have lost one of its biggest points of leverage with customers -- exclusive access to the iPhone.
Stephenson is said to have wrangled the extension on the back of the iPhone subsidy, which reduced the cost of the entry-level model to $199 and vastly expanded the target audience from well healed geeks to everyone.
Editor's note: I find it interesting and entertaining that tech-centric pubs (News.com) always work from the assumption that AT&T is having its way with Apple. Reading business pubs, you'll get the impression that AT&T has given away the store to Apple.
Meanwhile, both companies are doing very, very well by each other and can't seem to say enough nice things their opposite number.
