In yet another sudden shift, Verizon Wireless plans to support Google’s new software platform for cell phones and other mobile devices. Verizon Wireless had been one of several large cellular carriers withholding support from the Android initiative Google launched in early November.
But given the stunning U-turn Verizon Wireless made Nov. 27, announcing plans to allow a broader range of devices and services on its network, Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam says it now makes sense to get behind Android. “We’re planning on using Android,” McAdam tells BusinessWeek. “Android is an enabler of what we do.”
McAdam’s Open-Access Campaign
Though skeptics see ulterior motives and question just how easy Verizon will make it for rival products to get on its network, the surprise embrace of an open-access model and of the Android software culminates a dramatic yearlong evolution in the company’s thinking.
The effort, championed by McAdam, involved meetings with the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and late-night bull sessions with the top two executives at Verizon Communications, which owns Verizon Wireless in partnership with Vodafone.
All the while, McAdam kept focus by carrying a crumpled piece of paper in his pocket with seven bullet points defining what an open-access policy would mean to Verizon Wireless. “The paper is all wrinkled and it’s got coffee stains,” he says.
McAdam was more amenable to shifting gears thanks to time spent during the 1990s in Europe and Asia, where the wireless industry is more of a free-for-all. As vice-president for international operations at AirTouch Communications, now a part of Verizon Wireless, McAdam says he was impressed that European and Asian mobile carriers backed technologies that allow subscribers to switch to rivals with ease.
By contrast, Verizon Wireless has created the most profitable U.S. cellular business by tightly restricting the devices and applications allowed to run on its…