BusinessWeek has posted a very interesting interview they had with Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg with some behind the scenes action that resulted in the Verizon iPhone. He explains why Apple didn’t choose them first, installing towers for Apple to get on their good side and the lack of Verizon branding on the iPhone. Here’s an excerpt:
How did this Apple tieup come into being? What changed?
I don’t think anything changed. It all started with Apple (AAPL), and Apple decided that it wanted one carrier in every major market. So Apple and AT&T consummated a deal three years ago. And because Apple was more focused on a single technology—the GSM technology—they chose AT&T. We had good discussions with them, but it was clear to us that they weren’t looking to make a device for both sets of technologies.
