Article at NY Times:
I wandered down to the T-Mobile store at Ninth Avenue and 43rd Street in New York City to see what kind of crowds – if any – were lining up to buy the new T-Mobile G1 which went on sale Wednesday. No lines out the door. No crowding at the counter. Just a couple talking to a salesman who too was figuring out how to work the new mobile phone which is powered by Google’s new Android operating system.
The lack of crowds, one would suppose, is not surprising. That’s so true, especially now, since every new touch screen mobile phone is compared to one standard: the iPhone. Carolina Milanesi, a research director at Gartner Group who is based in London, said in a recent interview, “The iPhone is still a point of reference.”
Despite that, T-Mobile said there are signs of consumer interest. It said recently that, among those T-Mobile customers who have pre-ordered the phone, roughly half traded up from a basic handset. And the T-Mobile G1 area of the company’s Web site has received five times the traffic of any other major T-Mobile product introduction.
Whatever the gains for T-Mobile now, Ms. Milanesi said Google is focused on the bigger picture. That is, more phones which feature Google’s Android software, including those being developed by Motorola and Sprint Nextel. “Google is after the big picture, not after wowing the crowd with one device,” said Ms. Milanesi. “They want consumers to buy all devices with Android, not just this one.”
I wandered down to the T-Mobile store at Ninth Avenue and 43rd Street in New York City to see what kind of crowds – if any – were lining up to buy the new T-Mobile G1 which went on sale Wednesday. No lines out the door. No crowding at the counter. Just a couple talking to a salesman who too was figuring out how to work the new mobile phone which is powered by Google’s new Android operating system.
The lack of crowds, one would suppose, is not surprising. That’s so true, especially now, since every new touch screen mobile phone is compared to one standard: the iPhone. Carolina Milanesi, a research director at Gartner Group who is based in London, said in a recent interview, “The iPhone is still a point of reference.”
Despite that, T-Mobile said there are signs of consumer interest. It said recently that, among those T-Mobile customers who have pre-ordered the phone, roughly half traded up from a basic handset. And the T-Mobile G1 area of the company’s Web site has received five times the traffic of any other major T-Mobile product introduction.
Whatever the gains for T-Mobile now, Ms. Milanesi said Google is focused on the bigger picture. That is, more phones which feature Google’s Android software, including those being developed by Motorola and Sprint Nextel. “Google is after the big picture, not after wowing the crowd with one device,” said Ms. Milanesi. “They want consumers to buy all devices with Android, not just this one.”
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