Does Verizon / Google Spell Business Change for Apple / iPhone?

In a word, No.

The USA’s larget mobile phone carrier and the world’s largest . . . whatever Google is have announced that two new phones featuring Google’s Android operating system are about to go on sale at Verizon. It’s exciting news. It goes a long way to explain recent information suggesting that Verizon has given up on its efforts to get a version of the iPhone for their network.

But It DOESN’T mean, as is being suggested, that Apple’s dominance of the smart phone market is in trouble. At all. Sadly, the analysis is flawed.

Verizon/Google is no more going to squash iPhone than any media player has squashed iPod/iTunes.

Apple, for better or worse, owns some piece of our souls. I’m not being flip; this is their main strategy, and they’ve delivered upon it.

Sure, a better network and a more open platform is where this all needs to go — and will eventually. But Verizon will not know how to sell this against the iPhone and the mere connection with Google won’t be enough to matter unless the devices somehow manage to capture the world’s imagination.

And there will be two of them. Oops. Classic Verizon move; it’s the opposite of business change, actually . . . WHICH ONE DO I BUY?

Guess I’ll get an iPhone.