Verizon iPhone is coming?

Verizon iPhone 4 is coming: worst case scenario for Windows Phone 7 rollout

The timing of the Verizon iPhone early 2011 revelation couldn’t come at a worse time for Microsoft, who is gearing up to roll out its Windows Phone 7 platform next week. Despite years of trying, Microsoft’s mobile efforts have never quite gotten off the ground, and have certainly failed to match the company’s desktop computing dominance. 

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Apple’s iPhone has outpaced Microsoft’s Windows Mobile efforts almost as thoroughly as the iPod outpaces the Zune (okay, maybe not quite by that much), but suffice it to say that the public’s appetite for hearing about the latest iPhone model outpaces the desire to hear about new Microsoft-based phones by whole number multiples.

Which is why Microsoft must have been thrilled when it realized that it was seemingly in the clear with a mid-October Windows Phone 7 rollout: Apple had already had its big annual fall press conference in early September, and the iPhone was barely mentioned, as the day belonged (as it always does with Apple’s September event) to the company’s iPod lineup. But just as it looked like Microsoft would get to take ownership of the late 2010 mobile phone news cycle, or at least one week of it, the mere confirmation of an impending Verizon iPhone (and a third party confirmation at that, with Apple still not having admitted anything) means that Apple now owns the mobile news cycle for a bit without even having tried. Well, that’s if you believe that the timing of the Verizon iPhone leak was mere coincidence; some will assume that Apple purposely chose this time both to try to negatively impact Verizon Droid holiday sales and to bury Microsoft’s big rollout to page three while tech writers continue to ponder what a Verizon iPhone means for the overall market.

Microsoft will get some headlines with its Windows Phone 7 rollout, or Windows Mobile 7, or Windows on a Plane, or whatever they’re calling it this time around. But with Microsoft having never been considered a leader in the mobile market, and now trying to play catch-up to both the iPhone and the Android platforms, the phrase “Verizon iPhone coming after all” was the last thing Steve Ballmer wanted to see in the headlines right now.

(source:beatweek.com)