Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
I think it’s human nature to be drawn towards things with bright lights and people on stages. How else can you explain Bieber-mania.
As such the “event” phenomenon that has overtaken the wireless industry should not come as a surprise. These events have become places where individual companies make a big deal out of announcing a new product or service that is apparently all too important for a basic marketing program or press release. All of this accompanied with bright lights and people on stages.
As with many things wireless, these events can placed at that feet of Apple, which used its own MacWorld event in 2007 to out-do the concurrently running Consumer Electronics Show to announce its first iPhone device. Since then, Apple has conducted several of these extravaganzas every year to announce a new product or service and in general have become the “standard” for which all “events” are judged.
This past week witnessed T-Mobile US get in on the act, holding an event in New York City to tout new rate plans, device upgrade policies and trumpet the expansion of its LTE network. All worthy news items, but far from what I would term needing a special event to announce. I am sure there is someone at T-Mobile US who thinks these announcements are indeed worthy of both bright lights and people on stages, but from this judge’s point of view, these announcements fall short.
T-Mobile US is not the only one to have overstepped the need for bright lights and people on stages. Samsung has become a bit of a habitual pusher of this scenario, seeming to throw a gala event every time it wants to show off a new screen size.
By comparison, Sprint announced that it was acquiring controlling interest in Clearwire, being acquired by Softbank and rolled out a pair of new rate plans, all in the form of press releases. No dog-and-pony shows; no shark-jumping; no fuss.
Though it must be said that this restraint still does not make up for the fact that Sprint trotted out street-magician David Blaine for the launch of the Kyocera Echo split-screen smartphone. Perhaps the most egregious mis-use of the bright lights and people on stages template of all time.
Next week will be yet another test to see how well the industry can control itself as AT&T is set to host some sort of event to announce either something earth shattering, which would indeed need to have bright lights, people on stages and hopefully some sort of plan on how to put the earth back together, or something that would be better off coming to our attention via a funny commercial or just a press release.
I know a lot of announcements can’t wait for the next industry trade event to be announced. Heck, I have always found it odd that companies wait for these industry events to announce something as in most cases these announcements get drowned out by something else happening at that show. But, by making every announcement via a bright light and people on stages, aren’t we cheapening the impact of having bright lights and people on stages?
Let’s leave the bright lights and people on stages “events” for those that really deserve such pomp.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
–Well, it had to end eventually. The twin dragons of Softbank acquiring controlling interest in Sprint Nextel and Sprint Nextel gaining full control of Clearwire finally closed this week, with the end result being the nation’s No. 3 operator is now controlled by a deep-pocketed Japanese company; has a new name erasing a past mistake; and is now rolling in spectrum.
(I probably should go a bit easier on the whole “acquiring Nextel was a mistake” point as indeed without that deal Sprint would not now be sitting on the industry’s largest pile of spectrum.)
With these deals finally wrapped up, now the pressure is on for Sprint to actually do something. (And, I am not talking about just re-jiggering some rate plans.) Sprint has been sort of given a pass over the past several years due to bad decisions made by past administrations that in hindsight seem inconceivable.
However, with all that has transpired this week, no more excuse Sprint. Time for some serious action.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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