Corporate Hero? Maybe so. But in the Philippines, it could be a Corporate Zero.
There’s a tipper with an email going around the Philippine Internet – outlining a possible initial fee of PHP 9,995.00 for the iPhone, but of course killing you with a monthly fee of P3,500.00. There’s a higher plan where you get the phone free but have to pay the rate of a Globe Platinum subscriber at P5,000.00. The latter plan is nothing new – it’s what Platinum and SMART Infinity subscribers pay for this type of service plus they get any phone they want so I will leave that be. Let’s not even talk about the prepaid plans. I have a completely different take on this. Enjoy:
I wrote about this before — forgot though if it was for print or the blogs — how the iPhone should PUSH telcos to come up with better products, rather than push the iPhone itself. After watching the keynote, it made me realize more and more why Apple works closely with a telco (AT&T) as a lot of the iPhone’s services rely on a more robust data plan, a data plan that is light years ahead of our own 3G infrastructure.
Hi Jones (no, really Hi! I didn’t see you at the last PRSP seminar I gave last week), if you’re reading this I really hope you guys can figure out how to revamp this plan to be more subscriber friendly. The reason why Steve Jobs slashed the iPhone price was to make it more appealing to the masses. As he said, everyone should own an iPhone. If I had a say in the marketing roadmap for the iPhone, I’d take this as an opportunity to do some wow-ing myself, introducing a really kick ass data plan EXCLUSIVE to iPhone buyers from Globe initially, rather than put together a hodge-podge excuse that smells of corporate spare parts, which is what the telco experience is starting to feel like. In short, the product isn’t the iPhone 3G – it’s a revamped 3G roadmap that’s too remarkable to pass up. The iPhone 3G would be, well, a springboard.
This may be an edge over competition that just wants to unlock an iPhone and use it with SMART. Truth is, the iPhone can-afford crowd is a year ahead of the average guy who hasn’t even heard of the launch date here in the Philippines (because they don’t read up on the Internet). They’re going to have an easier time sourcing the iPhone from abroad. Or Greenhills. Wherever. Just not with Globe.
As for me, I’m definitely getting one from relatives from the US who are coming home in a few weeksmaybe a second hand 1st Gen iPhone wil work? I can’t wait. It is for me, the perfect time to get an iPhone because of the SDK release and although you still can’t do MMS, video recording, Business Card forwarding, and Bluetooth file exchange, I’m still hooked, it’s insane. That really floored me. Or … maybe I’ll get one from SMART, who knows? 😉 (Oops. A slip? I’m such a tease.)
Speaking on the side, I highly doubt uMobile will carry the iPhone unless they develop a native MMS application as this is one of the primary methods for sending ads. iPhone doesn’t have MMS.
So there it is Globe. It isn’t about the iPhone. Although it definitely is a news maker, it won’t follow through with the geek community here. Hey, we’re better than that. I hope the pricing isn’t final.
