Try to make sense of the schizophrenia. On the one hand you have a customer base wowed about the killer app. On the other you have a customer base screaming about customer service and support, retail availability and plan structures. It is one of those nightmare scenarios where Rumplestiltskin ends up marrying the Princess.
This situation isn't going to go away. It has been demonstrated that there is no room for entrepreneurial growth in the Canadian market for this industry since Fido and Clearnet, the new arrivals at the first CRTC's cellular spectrum auction, were swallowed by big regulated conglomerates Rogers and TELus respectively.
So the unique value of Apple's innovation is going to be siphoned through this strangulating tube of monolithic, single-carrier availability in Canada. You cannot buy direct from Apple unless you go to the US. And then you get stuck to Rogers like a fly to fly-paper:
Courtesy CBC.ca: According to CBCNews.ca's iPhone iNdex, which compares basic service plans from the 27 carriers in 21 countries that have announced pricing for the device's launch on Friday, Canadians who buy the device before Aug. 31 will be faced with a total minimum cost of $2,176 US over the course of the three-year deal they must sign with Rogers. That is second only to the $2,554 US customers of Vodafone will pay in Italy with their two-year service agreement.
The total minimum commitment cost counts the up-front fee for the iPhone plus the monthly service charge for each month of the contract that customers are required to sign. All numbers in the iPhone iNdex have been converted to U.S. dollars for comparison purposes.
When Rogers' special pricing promotion ends on Aug. 31, however, the company will take the most expensive spot with a total cost of $2,572 US, by virtue of its three-year contract — the longest service commitment in the world. (Rogers prices on the index also take into account its monthly system access fee.) Ibid.
So, who to blame? I have always put Apple up as an icon of customer-centric product solutions. But, as I reflect on my history with Apple, it always came at a premium. Apple in the good old days was typically pegged at 30% above competitive pricing. In the '90s their prices started to drop along with their market share, due to a distinct lack of innovation. In the new Millennium Apple refocused on pure innovation plays and made innovation part of fashion style.
But the rollout of iPhone to single carriers smacks too much of "My way" marketing from Apple. Although we've seen this coming for a long time (GSM = Rogers = iPhone) it stings all the more that Apple does not have enough leverage over the plan structure and won't even retail their own product. That it has worked at all is a great testimony to the power of the Apple brand. Everyone loves a winner and even pays with a passion. But to dish out super-tax to Rogers, the carrier by default – long term things have to got to get better than this.
I am going to pray that Apple fans and iPhone wanna-haves show enough restraint to force a more customer-centric roll-out in the Canadian market over the next few months and force Rogers to rethink it's promo pricing into a long term plan. And for Apple to consider an EV-DO version of iPhone to give us a break and open up the market.
