Nexus One: Nice Try Google

January 6, 2010

198

Karl’s reaction to Google’s mobile phone, Nexus One, with service plan offered by T-Mobile. – Ilene

Google introduces the Nexus One smart phone in Mt. View, California

Background: Google takes wraps off Nexus One

By Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service

Three years after rumors of a Google phone first surfaced, the search giant has taken the wraps off its own branded and designed mobile phone, the Nexus One.

Initially available on T-Mobile’s network or unlocked, Google said the phone will also become available from Verizon as well as Vodafone in Europe.

Customers can buy the phone now on a new Google Web page, Google.com/phone. It’s $530 unlocked. The phone costs $179 with a T-Mobile contract. The Vodafone and Verizon options are expected to be available sometime in the first quarter. Continue here.>>

Nexus One: Nice Try Google

Courtesy of Karl Denninger at The Market Ticker

You’ve got to be kidding.

Nexus One without service: $529
Nexus One with new, 2-year T-Mobile US service plan for new customers: $179
Nexus One with new, 2-year T-Mobile US service plan for qualifying existing T-Mobile customers who are adding data plans: $279
Nexus One with new, 2-year T-Mobile US service plan for qualifying existing T-Mobile customers who are upgrading their data plans: $379

Sorry, but with this pricing this thing is dead on arrival.

You get into the $300 area for an unlocked, "any network" device, you’ll sell a metric ton of them.

At this price – which is just $20 cheaper than AT&T’s 16GB iPhone 3GS – it’s a net lose. Why? Because you have to add an SD card to the Nexus One.

They also, IMHO, made a huge mistake not insisting that the 3G frequency set be compatible with AT&T’s frequencies. I understand the issue with trying to make it work with Verizon as well (which is on CDMA and thus totally incompatible with GSM) but the decision to not include the AT&T frequencies is, in my view, a huge mistake.

I was planning to buy one of these, as a current T-Mobile customer.

Not for $529 I won’t, and I’m off-contract – nor will I lock for two more years at $379 either.

$350 no-contract, you own it, maybe. $299 no-contract, you own it, $OLD.

It won’t matter how good it is at this price-point. T-Mobile has destroyed the contract model for mobile service with their "Even More Plus" plans and nobody in their right mind will be going back to an obligated plan in the future.

In addition watching the webcast was literally painful. This company – with a $623 per share stock price – put presenters on the stage that appeared to have EXTREME levels of stage fright, didn’t know the product and what’s worse, their camera-man (or men) were beyond incompetent and made the presentation look worse than the "Morning News" from my kid’s grade school "broadcast TV!"

To be blunt I was stunned at how poorly this "announcement" was handled.

If this is indicative of what Google has become over the last two years their stock is overvalued by 95% or more.

It really was that bad.

T-Mobile USA CEO: Nexus One May Show Up On Every US Carrier, WSJ

By Roger Cheng, Dow Jones Newswires

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–T-Mobile USA Chief Executive Robert Dotson said he wouldn’t be surprised if all of the major U.S. wireless service providers carried Google Inc.’s (GOOG) newly unveiled phone in the next 12 months.

Google’s Nexus One will run on T-Mobile USA, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG (DT), but will be sold directly to consumers through a Google-run Web site. While T-Mobile is the first to offer a plan for it, Verizon Wireless will offer a plan for it in the spring. Dotson told analysts during an investor conference on Tuesday that the other carriers may also follow.

Google’s Android mobile software is vitally important to T-Mobile’s strategy to push its data services, which best uses the newly upgraded network, Dotson said. Android is T-Mobile’s counterpunch to the Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPhone, which he admitted has taken many of the carrier’s best customers.

If he ran AT&T Inc. (T), he said, he would do everything to ensure that it maintains its exclusivity agreement with Apple. He also said he would do everything he could to get the iPhone over to T-Mobile USA.

The iPhone, meanwhile, has caused headaches for AT&T in major cities, where the network was congested. Dotson said the growth of data services among all smartphones means data usage-based pricing is inevitable in the U.S… more here.>>