I've been saying this for a while. The iPhone woke the millenials up to the allure of smartphones. Thank you Apple. At the same time as the iPhone launch, RIM very astutely was preparing phones with better screens, SD card storage, a camera, and media capabilities. For all those kids that preferred the tactile feedback of the BlackBerry keypad, that became their preferred device. The millenials are the next road warrior and a BlackBerry device will likely be their preferred tool for both business and personal mobile communication.

A true test of robotic determination! Poor thing must be exhausted!

Yeah, I bought one of the first "iPhone-ish" iPhone imitator touch screen phones in 2003. Wait... What?

2010 is a pretty aggressive schedule considering all that has to be done to roll out a totally new technology across a large national footprint. As for the openess of said network, it is clear that there will be more open devices allowed on the network but it is not clear if there will be any shenanigans in the network using traffic shaping, filtering, deep packet inspection, service type rating/billing, etc. to keep as much of the value add and revenue in the Verizon camp as possible. Example: rumours that Google may deploy Skype VoIP clients on Android devices. I am not sure Verizon will be too thrilled with that concept without something more in it for Verizon.

I can see a bunch of parnters sitting around a large table brainstorming new ways to drum up more billable hours for Apple (or T-Mobile, etc):

Head Partner: So, who has any new work for Apple?

Partner 1: Nothing new.

Partnee 2: Nada.

Partner 3: Zip.

Parnter 4: Well, the city of New York has a new apple logo with a leaf on it that looks kind of like the leaf in The Apple Logo if you're far away with the sun in your eyes, squinting.

Head Partner: Excellent! Draw up the cease and decist paperwork immediately. I'll tell the client. The rest of you go back and bang your head on your desks until something useful comes out!