Amazon's first smartphone is launching exclusively on AT&T, and T-Mobile CEO, John Legere, is no way happy about it. The man has taken to Twitter with a barrage of tweets condemning the deal, but is he correct in his assessment?
Mr. Legere made some decent points about the exclusive deal, as it makes it difficult for consumers on other networks to get a hold of a particular device. This only matters if an exclusive handset becomes a great hit.
Legere says a big company like AT&T and a bigger company like Amazon, coming together with an exclusive deal, only makes the industry feels small and gives consumers fewer options. To get hold of a device exclusive to another carrier, consumers have to consider whether or not they should switch allegiances, even if they are satisfied with how they are treated by their current carrier.
Another thing Legere pointed out in one of his tweets was the fact that AT&T has had a lot of trouble in the past when it comes down to exclusive smartphone deals. The iPhone exclusive deal brought a ton of new customers to AT&T, but it also made some of those customers angry when AT&T's network could barely handle the demands at times.
Remember the Facebook smartphone from HTC? Mr. Legere touched a little bit on that device. He pointed out how in just a month; AT&T was selling the handset for 99cents due to bad sales. We understand this device only went on to achieve 15,000 units sold.
There's no true way to tell of exclusivity of the Amazon 3D smartphone will work out for both AT&T and Amazon. It appears Amazon is relying on the success Apple had with making its device exclusive to AT&T, but the company should bear in mind that the smartphone industry was a lot different back in those days, and what worked for Apple then might not work for Amazon today.
As Amazon prepares to officially showcase the device later today, we're certain we'll be hearing a lot more from John Legere in the coming days. He'll have a lot to say, and we're counting on him to make it exciting as always.
