Ah, the good ol' non-committal statement. AT&T and Verizon -- the only two major U.S. carriers not a part of Google's Open Handset Alliance -- have made an art form out of the practice in recent weeks.
Shortly after the open source initiative was announced, Verizon said it would be "weighing" its options. More recently, AT&T's wireless CEO Ralph de la Vega did Verizon one better and said in an interview that his company was "analyzing the situation." No doubt, from an underground bunker with a periscope.
While in some ways it's rather obvious why Verizon and AT&T are waiting on the sidelines (hint: both companies are doing just fine with their current business models), we decided to see if we could get a little more clarification from AT&T about what, precisely, all this analyzing and weighing entailed.
Contrary to what the Wall Street Journal recently reported, AT&T's lack of OHA involvement does not seem to be linked to any contractual agreement with Apple. Instead, like everyone else, the company is simply waiting to see what this whole alliance business will mean for the mobile industry.
A company spokesman did get back to EPICENTER and outlined some of the company's more pressing concerns re: Google's Android and the happy-go-lucky alliance.
According to AT&T, those questions include:
- What will customers get on an Android-powered phone that they can't get on their current devices? New content? New applications?
- Will the system be secure enough to prevent viruses, hacking and other potential problems?
- What safeguards will be in place to protect customer's privacy?
- If Gmail is the default e-mail, how easy will it be for customers to access other email platforms? In other words, how much is Google's new OS going to crap up the traditional carrier business model and take control away from likes of AT&T and Verizon? Many of those questions won't be answered until Android-equipped phones start shipping in the middle of next year. But these concerns aren't so surprising given the fact that they come from a company that's a). already reaping the benefits of its iPhone exclusivity dealand b). already has a large and increasingly healthy subscriber base -- much bigger than T-Mobile or floundering Sprint (both OHA members).
So basically, the message for now seems to be that AT&T is in no hurry to join an upstart open source alliance whose very existence may or may not threaten the company's core business model. In the mean time, expect more assessing, analyzing, weighing…and possibly some mulling.
