Mark Crispin wrote:

> That assumes that a company wants to have a million fanboys as
> customers. If each fanboy drives away an average of 5 non-fanboys, the
> result is a loss of 4 million.

LOL, outside of Usenet, does anyone know that these fanboys exist? On
Usenet, do they really drive away anyone from AT&T? They probably do
have a negative effect on Apple, because without their posts and the
replies a lot of people would be unaware of any issues with the iPhone.
I.e., before I read it here, I simply assumed that the iPhone could edit
Word and Excel documents, and I assumed that it had voice-dialing.

> This is why the companies that go for iPhone tend to be the second-rates
> in their respective markets (AT&T in the US, Rogers in Canada, O2 in the
> UK, SoftBank in Japan, etc.). They need the surge of fanboys in order
> to finance a build-up of their network so they can reasonably compete
> with the top carrier.

This is true. The iPhone doesn't exist for me, because the AT&T coverage
in both my home area, and the places I travel to most often, is
sub-standard compared to Verizon coverage.

> But once that build-up happens, they need to get rid of the fanboys in
> order to attract the more profitable business customers,

The old AT&T Wireless and Cingular hemorrhaged business customers to
Verizon and the new AT&T Wireless is concentrating more on the
non-business user with products like the iPhone. The iPhone is virtually
unusable by most businesses that need full smart phone capabilities.
That's not to say that the iPhone doesn't have a market, just that it's
not the business market.