Too many companies try to outsmart themselves and end up with bigger problems than they started out with. Verizon Wireless just lost me. I've been a loyal Verizon customer for about 5 years now. They provide the best service in the area I live in and we've had a pretty economical family plan we've worked under for myself, my wife and our two college-age children. Up until this month, nothing but positive things to say.
Then of course, we all discovered we needed new phones.
My oldest son wanted an iPhone. Who wouldn't? All his friends at school had one and being the last on your dorm floor to get with the times is a minor catastrophe. And I was getting tired of my Treo (more Microsoft Mobile but that's a rant for another day). So, I decided it was time for me to upgrade as well. And my wife's phone was showing its age as well. So, we started thinking about iPhone's for the whole clan. The problem of course is that iPhone is limited to AT&T and we really didn't want to change carriers and plans.
Not to worry our friendly Verizon rep told us. We're introducing the Voyager and it's just as good. In fact, it's our iPhone killer! Why, you can even watch TV on this thing. There's something the iPhone can't do! I asked a few qualifying questions ... can it handle my basic e-mail needs? No problem was the answer. It's an Internet device and we'll just upgrade your plan to include enough Internet access to take care of all that stuff.
Being the suspicious sort, I decided to be a guinea pig for the phone and try it out first before I bought one for myself, my wife and my son. 24 hours later, I own a new Blackberry, he's got his iPhone and my wife is still on the market. What a disaster.
The phone is sleek and cool as can be (looks just like an iPhone and the form factor is in many ways better). Problem is it does next to nothing well and the support team is terrible. When I asked how to get my e-mail, contacts and calendar synched, it was like I'd asked NASA about the secrets to flying the space shuttle. After I got disconnected and/or misled on how to set things up five times, I gave up. Digging in a little more on my own this morning, I was able to figure out how to do a bunch of things their support team actually told me I couldn't do (like retrieve e-mail from our corporate server) but by then the whole experience was in perspective for me and I'd realized the Voyager was a loser. It doesn't do e-mail well at all. It's inconvenient as a phone. The video and the games are pretty cool but who cares!
Another example of what happens when developers forget that simple is smart.
Apple and RIM have it right. They've designed solutions for distinct audiences that are simple to use and serve their needs completely. I'm not sure what niche the Voyager is going after but it seems to me its just another rushed to market copy-cat product with lots of built-in complexity. Lots of marketing dollars going into this thing but my fear is they forgot the basics. I may have 'wanted to buy' this thing but when I discovered a bad experience, they've lost me as a customer.
