Jackass: Verizon's Mike Lanman.
I just read this story, which essentially explains that while Verizon's current devices are weak (as they have always been) , that's all going to change when Verizon releases the Voyager in time for this year's holiday season. The Voyager is an iPhone knockoff with a touch screen and full web browser, but that slides open to reveal a full tactile keyboard. It's made by LG, which everyone recognizes to be a paragon of technical and design excellence. (...) Anyway, the most notable part of this story is the part where Mike Lanman -- Verizon's Chief Marketing Officer, where 'Marketing' means saying utterly ridiculous things to the press to illustrate how out of touch you are with the industry you claim to be marketing to -- says the Voyager will trump the iPhone. In fact, Lanman says it will be the best phone on the market.
"We think it'll be the best phone ... this year. It will kill the iPhone," Verizon Wireless Chief Marketing Officer Mike Lanman said in an interview.Read that again: "It will kill the iPhone." The iPhone sold 1M phones in 74 days. The iPhone is already iconic. Everyone knows about the iPhone, and many say it will be strongly considered when it's time for them to look at a new phone. The only thing slowing an iPhone epidemic is its lock-in to AT&T as the exclusive U.S. provider. I'll bet anyone who's game that the Voyager won't sell 500K units in 74 days. Straight up. The undercurrent of this story is essentially that Verizon has redass because Apple approached them first and said, "Hey, we basically have this Jesus Phone, and we want you to sell it exclusively. But since we're Apple and we're kind of on a roll, we want a heavier revenue split that what you give your other shitty phone vendors," and Verizon said, "No way Jobs, I'm Mike Lanman and we have all sorts of kickass phones like LGs and Chocolates and ShitPhones so you'll take your standard percentage and like it," and Jobs said, "Hey I have an idea, how about you blow me?" and Lanman said, "Oh fuck, he's walking!" and now he has to say a constant stream of inane bullshit so he can try to support his failed blustering for his boss. I'm sure the Voyager will be an interesting phone for Verizon, simply because Verizon's phones are a solid 9-12 months behind everyone else. As far as the Voyager being a threat to the iPhone, however, I think Avi Greengart from Current Analysis says it best:
"People who want a high-end media phone and want to stay with Verizon will certainly give that one a hard look. I don't know that it would pull anybody away from an iPhone."By "I don't know" Greengart means "I'm absolutely positive that it won't". [Via Gary]
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