If you were on the fence about Apple’s arrival on the Verizon network happening in the near future, this might be a little nugget of information that helps push you over the edge: AT&T is preparing to lose their exclusivity with Apple.
According to Bloomberg, AT&T is not only adding as many phones to their holiday lineup as possible, but they’re also in the process of retraining their employees to “reduce reliance on its top-selling smartphone” during the holidays. The “reduce reliance” is a little bit of a tell. AT&T could be moving support staff off of the popular device, and instead shunting them to other architectures, or it could mean that they’ll be placing emphasis on their other offerings during the holidays. Our guess is that it’s the previous, ensuring their employees are as knowledgable about the Windows 7 and Android offerings as they are about the iPhone 4.
There’s only so much they can do to mitigate the damage a lost exclusivity deal could have on their company, and ensuring that their employees can handle requests and sell other alternatives is an obvious must if AT&T is going to survive the divorce.
Being in Canada, I can’t even begin to tell you how awesome it is to have the iPhone on multiple carriers. Once my current contract is up, I’m jumping ship.
Article Via AppleInsider and Bloomberg
