Just sat thru the live feed from the Nexus One press conference. Reading only slightly between the lines it sounds like they announced just what I wanted to hear, a new distribution channel. More phones to come, and more carriers as well. In particular during the Q&A it was pretty explicit that blowing up the current costs associated with the store & agent based selling model is part of the scheme. It will be interesting to see were the value pricing, discounting, etc. goes next. And there remains a real tipping point when the plans finally stop including a subsidy for the phone’s cost. I was a bit surprised that T-Mobile (and Sprint, and Verizon) wasn’t at the event – that really signals something but I’m not entirely sure what. Finally this event had the production quality of middle school play. I find that weird.
Update: Another version of this story.