Linked by Kroc Camen on Wed 17th Dec 2008 19:32 UTC, submitted by risbac
PDAs, Cellphones, Wireless The French competition council has ordered the iPhone be opened up to other French carriers (Google-translated), breaking the exclusivity deal with Orange (France Telecom). The complaint was filed by France's third largest operator Bouygues Telecom who said that the deal violated local competition laws. Though the ruling [fr] is temporary whilst the issue is investigated further, the ruling did state that the arrangement reduced the effects of price competition, network quality and customer service.
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RE[3]: Far too late
by Adurbe on Thu 18th Dec 2008 10:39 UTC in reply to "RE[2]: Far too late"
Adurbe
Member since:
2005-07-06

the iphone is a HUGELY successful product. The mobile phone market is very competitive yet Apple are the 3rd largest mobile phone manufacturer now

im sure not every user is an apple fanboy, maybe, just maybe its a good product that suits their needs...

p.s. I do not own an iphone as my network do not offer it in the uk and i now get to many loyalty perks to leave...

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[4]: Far too late
by spiderman on Thu 18th Dec 2008 11:17 in reply to "RE[3]: Far too late"
spiderman Member since:
2008-10-23

I believe Apple is not in the top 10 mobile manufacturers, not even in the US.

EDIT: I've found some statistics on the Web.

http://stats.getjar.com/statistics/
Apple is 12th mobile manufacturer
Look at the device table. The iphone is not in the top 100, it's the 212th most sold mobile worldwide, 0.04% of the market, as of November 2008. In the US, it's worse: 0.02%
There are 72 Nokia N95 for 1 Apple iPhone in the world, and the N95 is newer than the iPhone... Maybe the fact that the N95 can send MMS and do J2ME has something to do with it?

Edited 2008-12-18 11:36 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[5]: Far too late
by haakin on Thu 18th Dec 2008 11:47 in reply to "RE[4]: Far too late"
haakin Member since:
2008-12-18

The problem with those statistics is that they are based on measuring the traffic of a number of wap sites:
http://forum.getjar.com/knowledge/GetJar/Developer_FAQ/Q_How_does_G...

Do you think that many iPhone users use wap to browse the web?

Reply Parent Score: 1

RE[5]: Far too late
by Adurbe on Thu 18th Dec 2008 12:18 in reply to "RE[4]: Far too late"
Adurbe Member since:
2005-07-06

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/10/21/apple_iphone_3g_sales...

they are the 3rd larges after Nokia and Samsung in terms of units shipped.

please note that means they sell more than the established players like Sony, LG and RIM (blackberry)

Reply Parent Score: 1