Archive for: deal
Sorry for the error — it is T-Mobile who is offering Valentines Day sales consisting of free phones. NOT Verizon.
If you’re looking for either a new cellular provider or are already a T-Mobile customer in need of a new phone, this Valentines Day is going to be very rewarding. On two days — February 11th and February 12th — this month and this month alone, T-Mobile will make all smartphones available for free when a new 2-year contract is signed. Yeah, you have to give up two more years of your life to one carrier, but the pay off is pretty worthwhile if you ask us.
The only knock we have against T-Mo’s little love deal is the mere fact that “all” smartphones aren’t really included in this sale — just the ones in the image above. But hey, we can’t get too upset. Their Valentines Day deal is far better than any other carriers’. Is a new T-Mobile phone in your future?
For better or worse, “exclusive” business deals with between wireless carriers and 3rd party businesses are a fact of life. In some cases, they work out pretty well. In others, not so much. Much like the Verizon-Bing deal, T-Mobile has a newfound friend itself, in Google.
Parent company Deutsche Telekom has gone ahead with releasing the stipulations of the new deal, save for any details involving monetary exchange. Specifically, all T-Mobile Europe phones will default to Google Search. Furthermore, the T-Mobile “home web” will also feature a Google Search icon.
The deal is much further reaching than just Europe, however. It appears all of the companies/regions under Deutsche Telekom control will be getting this change — T-Mobile US will see the effects too. Though it’s worth noting that T-Mobile US moved over to Google Search as the default search provider early in the year when the Yahoo! contract expired.
How’s this sitting with everyone? Anyone out there prefer another search engine over Google?
Remember that T-Mo Father’s Day blowout sale we touched on a few days back? Well T-Mobile has gone viral with it. Here’s how it goes: Free phones all around IF you start up a new family plan or add a second line to your existing single line plan. Also, you will have to take a 2-year contract — no Even More Plus contract free shenanigans for you.
Furthermore, some of the phones may require a MIR to actually get knocked down to that “Free” moniker. MIR hassles aside, it’s still a steal especially if your’e the type who goes for the pricey stuff. But let’s admit it, you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.
Anyone heading over to T-Mo this Father’s Day?
Rumors of an HTC buyout of Palm created a flurry of speculation earlier this week. I myself was even pretty intrigued and on board if HTC decided to take that path. Think of how awesome an HTC/webOS combo could have been — that magical hardware + software synergy.
Unfortunately, the powers that be decided that it just wasn’t in the companies’ best interests and as such, have walked away from the bargaining table. Palm’s loss. HTC? We’ll see.
In the market for a webOS device? What about kicking it up a notch to a more “mature” version of webOS in the form of a Palm Pre+ or Pixi+ ? If you had any reservations because of the price, drop it. Verizon is either feeling the webOS love or they have warehouse upon warehouse chock full of these things. Either way they’re dead set on moving as many webOS devices as possible. Don’t believe me? Well then, ask yourself if they are in fact aren’t desperate to sell sell sell, why would they feel the need to drop the Pre+ down to $49.99 w/ a new 2-year contract? The Pixi+ comes in even lower at $29.99 w/ a similar 2-year plan. At these prices, it would be utter stupidity to get any other version of webOS as Verizon’s offerings are now the cheapest, and by far the fastest.
I always wanted to give webOS at least some attention. Is now the time to do so? Anyone have new plans featuring webOS in their immediate future?
Precentral
I’m sure many of you have heard about Skype’s buddy buddy deal with Verizon Wireless and the subsequent vanishing of Skype’s mobile apps in various mobile app stores. Windows Marketplace, Nokia Ovi Store, Apple App Store, Android Market — they all have seen Skype disappear/lose functionality/fail to gain new functionality within the last week. For instance, Apple’s Skype has long been promised to gain 3G VoIP support after Apple and AT&T finally got a few ducks to line up. After the announcement, that added 3G VoIP support is looking more and more distant. Even worse however is Nokia’s Ovi store which saw Skype get completely removed. When Venture Beat questioned Skype on the decision, a spokesperson had this to say:
Skype has made a decision in the United States to not promote the Skype for Symbian app through the Ovi Store. We did this so that we could drive more attention to the recently announced Skype and Verizon Wireless agreement. This was a marketing decision — plain and simple
Obviously, some large sums of marketing and sponsorship money traded hands, with Verizon paying rather hefty dough to get the top spot in Skype’s eyes. At first, Skype and Verizon both win. The VoIP market and mobile internet crazed world will gobble this up. But over the longer run, I see this deal hurting Skype more than it hurts. To be fair, the other mobile platforms highlighted above aren’t “losing” Skype. They’re just losing easy Skype downloads via their standalone app stores. Anyone will still be able to go to Skype via their mobile browser and download their platform’s respective Skype client. But how many “casual” mobile users out there will go to where everyone says the most and best apps are (again, their mobile platforms app store) and not see Skype? Most of those users won’t think to search outside of the app store. They’ll just download something else.
That right there is a bad, bad thing for Skype. With their new Verizon deal, they’re effectively making it many times harder to get their app and service on mobile devices. For a techie like your or I, we know countless sources for mobile apps and such. Farmer Joe off the street — not so much. It’s really disheartening to see a great VoIP service potentially sabotaging themselves all for some cash up front. Do you think Skype will continue their dominating position in the VoIP world, especially considering the mobile sphere? Or is Skype literally committing suicide by cutting off easy access to millions of customers?
- December 17, 2009 9:05 pm
Wireless carriers form partnerships and deals with various 3rd parties all of the time. For sake of the next 35 seconds of your life, we’re going to focus on the software side of things. If you happen to have a BlackBerry running on Verizon, fire up the ‘ol BB Browser running the latest firmware and take a look in the search box. Chances are you’ll see “Bing” in grayed out incognito colors. RIM going Bing only is one possibility. Though so is a Verizon/Microsoft search deal as well. Whichever the case, having to manually select Google or Yahoo as an alternate search provider each time you were doing a search would be enough of a pain. Too bad there isn’t any option to even switch to a new search engine. Not one. Nadda. Not that anyone uses the BB Browser for any hardcore mobile browsing escapades anyway….
BGR
