Verizon Wireless To Introduce 'Any Apps, Any Device' Option For Customers In 2008
New Open Development Initiative Will Accelerate Innovation and Growth — BASKING RIDGE, NJ — Verizon Wireless today announced that it will provide customers the option to use, on its nationwide wireless network …
Context & Ripple Effects
This announcement lands three weeks after Verizon Wireless abandoned its legal fight against the FCC's open-access spectrum auction rules — status 'failed' on that challenge as of late October 2007. The 'Any Apps, Any Device' option reads as the strategic pivot that follows: rather than resisting openness through litigation, the carrier is absorbing it into its own offering ahead of 2008.
It also marks a sharp break from the playbook Verizon ran through most of 2007 — exclusive handsets like the LG Chocolate in July and the MOTORIZR Z6tv entertainment phone in September, both built on tight carrier control of the device and software stack. GigaOM ('Why Verizon Went Open & What It Means') and the NYT's Bits blog picked the story up within hours, an unusually broad same-day footprint for a carrier policy shift.
First-order effects
- Starting in 2008, Verizon Wireless customers can attach any compatible device and run any application on its national network, ending the carrier's role as gatekeeper over which phones and software reach its subscribers.
- Device makers and independent developers gain direct distribution to Verizon's base without negotiating handset exclusives or carrier-certified software channels.
Second-order effects
- Rival carriers face pressure to publish equivalent open-access terms or compete for developers and device makers on price and network quality alone.
- Verizon's own exclusivity deals — the mechanism behind 2007's Chocolate-by-LG launch — lose leverage as lock-in weakens, pushing handset economics toward open retail channels.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, carrier value migrates from controlling the device-software stack to selling raw network capacity and quality — the classic case of interoperability shifting the moat.
- Open-access terms pioneered under the FCC auction framework risk becoming table stakes across US wireless, normalizing customer-owned devices industry-wide regardless of whether other carriers adopt them voluntarily.
The trend: US carriers are repositioning from closed handset-and-application walled gardens toward open network platforms, with defensibility moving to spectrum and network performance.