Analysts are estimating this year that RIM will sell about 13 million phones.

That's with an existing installed user base of over 10 million, it's estimated that about half of the 13 million phones they will sell are replacements, and the rest, 6 or 7 million, new users.

This 13 million phones is with all the major US carriers, offering several different models, with over 300 carriers across the world, and includes a dominant market share in the US enterprise that they have been working to build around 7+ years.

Apple just sold over 1 million phones with one carrier, in one country, in one quarter, offering only one phone. They sold nearly one and half million phones in one quarter and two days.

They project they will sell 10 million next year. If they do, they will nearly match RIM's business in their first full year in offering a cell phone, with limited carriers, in only certain countries. It's entirely possible that they could be selling more phones than RIM within a couple of years of entering the business.

Now, it's not a perfect product, and certainly is not for everyone, but the tenor of his comments imply that it is a failure, that it can't compete with him, and that they'll be licensing technology keyboard technology from him.

Based on the sales, if Apple's phone is a weak effort and a failure, he better hope it's never actually a success.

There is a very, very easy way to make your voices heard and I would encourage you all to do so. I have.

Email Chairman Martin directly, tell him to STAND UP to Verizon's pressure and ensure open access as promised. That the US mobile industry trails the developed world and it's time for that to change, to do the right thing for consumers.

You can easily email him at this link:

http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/martin/mail.html


For good measure, write the other 4 commissioners at:

http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/copps/mail.html

http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/adelstein/mail.html

http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/tate/mail.html

http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/mcdowell/mail.html

You can write the Chairman of the Committee that oversees the FCC here:

http://markey.house.gov/index.php?option=com_email_form&Itemid=124

Finally, if you want, write your Senator too:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm


At least email the FCC, will take seconds. Otherwise, you can't complain. Verizon is making their voice heard.

Well, knowing Verizon, this uninspiring device can be expected in mid-2008.

Oh, it'll be there. They'll waste 3 months getting it actually released to add that and ruin it, which is what's happening with the i760 that people have been waiting months for.

LOL, this is the iphone response? A week and a half later they launch this? And after Seidenberg crowing about their "big response" and all these new phones they were launching to compete with it. So six months to get ready, this is what we get?

Other people's networks will get better, their pricing already is, but apparently Verizon is permanently hopeless on device innovation and customer choice. I left and ain't going back. Hope they get their act together for those of you that are with them.

So Sprint is your standard, LOL? Yeah, I guess if we compare them to sprint, they stack up OK. Not even blow them out the water, but OK. If I want a WM6 smartphone, Sprint has already beaten Verizon to the punch with the 6800 Mogul by nearly a month and counting.

The featured phone in Verizon's WM segment was released OVER 2 years ago, the Samsung i730. Yeah, clearly they're on the device cutting edge.

AT&T has since added the Blackjack (a 3G phone model), the Blackberry Pearl and first with the Curve, first with the Blackberry 8800, were carrying the Nokia smartphones until recently, a wide Palm lineup, a new Symbian phone in the N75, and now the iphone. Plus, they're launching the HTC Kaiser in a matter of weeks and the Q9.

So sure, if you're going to compare them to Sprint, i.e. the worst, they stack up great, LOL. But as I said, if AT&T had their network quality, combined with their phone lineup, Verizon would really be in trouble.

And of course, that only matters to a small segment of the market, what's your point? We're visitors to engadgetmobile, most of us are in that 1%, and unless you work for Verizon Wireless, defending their phone lineup and innovation is a joke. Heck, even Seidenberg acknowledged this fact when he said that they would be launching 20 devices this year to respond to the iphone (if your lineup is so great, why is that necessary?). Of course, they're already bungling release dates and pushing release dates back a few weeks as they test, aka cripple, the phones (6800 and i760). Earlier reports that they might get the Touch or the Prada are probably a minimum of 6 months away if they even get them at all (2 phones widely available in Europe), if they are true at all.

Sorry, the 2 big guys in the US mobile industry are tragically flawed--AT&T on the network and Verizon on device innovation and openness of the network.

Maybe one day their crappy phone lineup will improve. Enjoy this with one of those two year old PDA devices they offer.

They spend so much time dumbing down and crippling down their phones, they can't launch them. They keep making all these press releases about their email and music and the stores being open a little later, but they can't even get out the phones that are supposed to be out for people to use them on--like the Samsung 760 or the HTC 6800 Sprint already launched. This is after Seidenberg bragged about the 20 phones they were going to release to respond to the iphone--is this after they sell 10 million iphones with 2 year AT&T contracts?

With their network, they'd be impossible to beat if they could ever get their act together on devices, instead they may be getting worse. If the other guys could ever catch up on the networks, they'd really be in a pinch. Come on Verizon.