the onda

GigaOm is reporting on the Verizon-Android announcement today. To take a very North American perspective for a moment, if this means that there will be no iPhone on Verizon, I'm fairly sure we'll look back on this in two years and consider this Apple's second "Windows moment." Or basically, the point at which Apple's integrated and proprietary strategy backfired and inferior products won through a more open ecosystem approach.

It is more than ironic that this is happening with Verizon, the most closed of all of the wireless carriers, but such must be the fear that the iPhone must have put into them. And to that end, the wireless giant couldn't have found a better partner in Google who is only interested in making sure that the retain the search box in the overall shift in personal computing to smartphones.

This is going to be win-win for quite a while, and in the meanwhile, I think we'll see the first credible competitor to the Apple ecosystem that we've seen. With a low cost smartphone handset (which Moto might just be able to pull off) that doesn't suck, and a tiered pricing model that lets some people get reduced service in the $50/month range, combined with Verizon's retail footprint and their superior network, I bet there are quite a few folks choking on their frothy lattes in Cupertino.

Unless of course, Apple doesn't make the same mistake again and remain closed and proprietary. After all, old dogs can learn new tricks, right?