Google’s mobile operating system has been delayed. Android’s much anticipated launch, originally scheduled for a midyear, has been delayed until the fourth quarter. Realistically, we won’t be seeing Android until 2009. It’s a somewhat more costly delay than normal for Google. Development projects of this scale always have delays, but Google’s competitors are seizing on the Android void. Apple’s 3G iPhone will now have a sizeable lead in the marketplace and RIM’s BlackBerry will as well. According to the Wall Street Journal, the delays are being caused by customization and translation challenges from carriers like Sprint and China Mobile. The Wall Street Journal even speculates that Sprint may forgo a 3G version of Android, and wait until a 4G WiMAX version is ready. Whatever the cause, we’ll have to wait to see what the competitive impact of Android and its burgeoning ecosystem will be.

Sprint released its main competitor to the iPhone with an aggressive entry price point. The Instinct, manufactured by Samsung, will be priced at $129.99, a direct shot across the iPhone bow, which is priced at $199 (or $299 for a better version). The Instinct offers many of the same features of the iPhone, minus the fanatical following. Sprint will market the Instinct through their retail footprint, website, and through telesales. It will also be sold through an exclusive retail window at Best Buy from June 20 - August 28.

The Instinct mimics the iPhone in many ways, including a touchscreen, visual voicemail, and advanced data and web friendly features. Unlike the iPhone, the Instinct also has a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Sprint is marketing the Instinct as their “… first EV-DO Rev A consumer-centric device,” referencing the consumer appeal of the iPhone and 3G broadband capabilities. Sprint needs all the help it can get. We’re sure the iPhone has contributed to Sprint’s customer hemorrhaging problem of late, which has been averaging one million+ customer defections per quarter this year.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs confirmed the long rumored launch of the 3G version of the Apple iPhone today. Today's 3G iPhone news is not so much of a surprise, but its new pricing might be. The new 3G iPhone will come in two models, 8 and 16 GB models, costing $199 and $299 respectively. That's a significant drop in price over the previous cheapest iPhone model of $399. The new pricing reflects a revised partnership agreement between AT&T and Apple. Under the new terms, AT&T will not share iPhone monthly service revenue with Apple, but will subsidize the handset purchase, resulting in the lower costs. The new pricing will be offered based on a two year service agreement with AT&T. The new iPhone will be available July 11th.

The price drop will certainly put competitive pressure on iPhone's rivals, including the venerable BlackBerry and smartphones running Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system. The iPhone has demonstrated already that it is a powerful player in the smartphone market and this price drop will surely strengthen its impact. RIM's BlackBerry has held its ground quite impressively against the iPhone. But the added features of the new 3G iPhone, which also includes GPS functionality, and a lower price will up the competitive ante with BlackBerry.

AT&T might also see a tangible bounce in subscriber additions due to this new 3G iPhone pricing strategy. AT&T Wireless CEO Ralph de la Vega said in a statement, "...The device is built, and priced, to sell." They are looking for "mass market" appeal. It may provide enough incentive for hundreds of thousands of additional Sprint customers, who are already leaving Sprint at the pace of 1 million+ per quarter, to churn over to AT&T. The biggest knock on AT&T and the iPhone was lack of true broadband wireless speed. With that barrier removed and this aggressively priced 3G iPhone, look out Sprint.

According to the latest smartphone sales figures, the BlackBerry is holding up just fine against Apple’s iPhone. In fact, in the face of the iPhone onslaught, BlackBerry is actually increasing their smartphone market share. For the first quarter 2008, the BlackBerry garnered 44.5% of smartphone sales, up from 35.1% in the previous quarter. The iPhone was second, with 19.2% of the market, declining from 26.7% from the previous quarter. Palm rounded out the top three, with 13.4% of smartphone sales, an increase from 7.9% in the previous quarter. The details are revealed in this InformationWeek article.

BlackBerry is working to expand its scope beyond just the enterprise to include everyday professional consumers, or “prosumers.” It appears their strategy may be paying off. They are introducing a series of new handsets, including the Bold, that appeal to working professionals. Those professionals may not care if their place of work supports BlackBerry or not. Part of the iPhone’s decline may be attributed to the anticipated release of a 3G version, which is rumored to be launched in mid June. Apple and AT&T are also just beginning an iPhone push into the enterprise market, which is BlackBerry’s historical strength. The real competitive comparison will begin once the iPhone’s 3G version is in play and it gains a foothold in the enterprise space.

Sprint is about to launch its latest response to the iPhone craze, the Samsung Instinct. The new Instinct is scheduled to be available on June 20th. Sprint hopes the Instinct may help stop the bleeding of subscribers who are leaving Sprint in droves. Prime beneficiaries of the Sprint exodus have been AT&T and Verizon. The iPhone may be just the excuse that hundreds of thousands of Sprint subscribers need to leave Sprint and go to AT&T. Sprint hopes the Instinct may cause some of those subscribers to pause and evaluate this iPhone “like” option. The Instinct is very iPhone like, offering many of the same features, including:

• touchscreen
• visual voicemail
• up to 8GB of memory
• music and other multimedia options
• web browsing

Unlike the iPhone, the Instinct offers a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Sprint may have some challenges with the Instinct because its scheduled release is right in the middle of the rumored release of the 3G iPhone, rumored to be announced on or around June 9th. The iPhone’s biggest drawback has been the lack of true 3G type wireless broadband speed, which handicapped the many web enabled applications of the iPhone. With that problem solved, the iPhone may be even a more formidable adversary than it has been in the past, which wouldn’t be good news for its competitor’s or the wireless providers who do not have access to it.

According to a recent survey conducted by Rubicon Consulting, 47% of iPhone users switched wireless carriers to AT&T to gain access to the iPhone. That equates to 1.4 million new accounts for AT&T, which possibly would not be with them if not for the iPhone. That’s a nice weapon to have in your arsenal (I wonder how many of those new customers are former disgruntled Sprint customers). Another encouraging metric for AT&T is the incremental revenue generated by existing AT&T customer who upgraded to an iPhone plan, which according to Rubicon’s survey results, equates to $19/month. If you believe Rubicon’s math, AT&T’s 3 million iPhone customers now contribute an additional $2 billion/year for AT&T (although a hefty sum of that figure is revenue shared with Apple).

The iPhone experiment has proven that a wireless device, and its manufacturer, can move markets. Prior to the iPhone, the prevailing thought was wireless carriers needed to heavily subsidize devices, or consumers would not adopt them. So much for that line of thinking. Make the right device with the right features and millions will line up, regardless of carrier and subsidy. Look for a string of competitors to try to imitate this enviable success.

RIM introduced its answer to the iPhone’s move into the enterprise space in a Bold way. The Bold is RIM’s first 3G phone. The Bold hopes to stem the pending iPhone enterprise tide, by introducing similar features and a new style and design. It sets up what will be an interesting and pitched battle for RIM’s historical base – enterprise wireless customers. The new Bold will be exclusive to AT&T for a short while in North America and will offer tri-band HSDPA high-speed access, integrated GPS, Wi-Fi access, a faster processor, and 1 GB of onboard memory. The Bold is expected to launch sometime this Summer.

The Bold also attempts to provide an alternative to the iPhone’s rich multimedia heritage. Some key multimedia features include:

• on-the-go web browsing experience with desktop-style depiction
• a 2 megapixel camera with video recording capability, built-in flash and 5x digital zoom
• a media player which can display pictures and slideshows quickly and play movies in full screen mode
• audio can be played over the handset’s dual speakers in stereo sound, and when using wired headphones or external speakers, the media player gives the user an equalizer with 11 preset filters
• includes the Roxio Media Manager for BlackBerry as well as Roxio Photosuite 9 LE, which makes it easy to enhance pictures
• synchronization of iTunes digital music collections through the new BlackBerry Media Sync application

In addition to Apple’s move on the enterprise sector, they are also rumored to be close to launching a 3G iPhone soon. Early indications are that the Bold will provide some competitive cover for RIM against the iPhone, especially considering their embedded customer base and superior email functionality. But Apple has the touchscreen, marketing prowess, cool factor, and an almost cult like following. Add 3G capability to that mix, and the iPhone will certainly be a contender to fear. Stay tuned.

Once the domain of RIM’s BlackBerry and Palm’s Treo, the corporate smartphone segment is about to get a new player - the Apple iPhone Enterprise. Apple announced several initiatives to make the iPhone more corporate IT friendly, with the hopes of dramatically expanding the iPhone’s reach beyond the consumer segment. The move is all a part of the so called iPhone 2.0 Software initiative, which also involves a new iPhone software development kit (SDK) for third party developers. Apple will encourage application development for the iPhone and will open an iPhone store for the distribution of third party applications. On the enterprise side, the iPhone will now support Microsoft Exchange, the widely used corporate email platform, and allow for “push” email capability, and calendar and contacts synchronization. Additionally, iPhone software 2.0 also supports Cisco IPsec VPNs and WPA2 Enterprise with 802.1x authentication — the standard for Wi-Fi network security. Apple will use Microsoft’s ActiveSync Direct Push technology, and hopes that the new applications, combined with employee requests for iPhone support, will push corporate IT departments to adopt it as a corporate smartphone option.

Apple will have some difficulty. The enterprise smartphone sector is ruled by RIM’s BlackBerry, and to a lesser extent, Palm’s Treo line. Corporate IT departments have never been known to enthusiastically embrace new options like the Apple iPhone. In their eyes, the iPhone’s cool design and form are meaningless. It’s just one more piece of hardware and software to get up to speed on, troubleshoot, and train “clueless” staff on. Many of them will say no thank you, at least initially. They will argue that the BlackBerry is meeting their needs just fine, “thank you very much.” I could be proven wrong. I suspect that many of the folks running IT departments already have either iPhones or an iPod or two. They may already be under Apple’s spell, and consequently more open to supporting the iPhone, than say one from Nokia. Of course the iPhone’s limited carrier reach due to its exclusivity with AT&T limits its appeal as well. Whatever the case, Apple’s making a case for the enterprise and taking on some pretty well entrenched competitors. It will be interesting to watch.

Starbucks has inked a deal that replaces T-Mobile with AT&T for their company store Wi-Fi hotspot service. T-mobile customers will still be able to access the network through a roaming agreement with AT&T. AT&T’s broadband and U-verse customers will have access to the Starbuck’s Wi-Fi networks free of charge. This latest move expands upon AT&T’s growing use of Wi-Fi as a competitive tool. They recently opened up their nationwide Wi-Fi network free of charge to existing broadband customers.

AT&T is leveraging Wi-Fi for several reasons. Giving it away to broadband customers creates additional value for an AT&T subscription. AT&T also has millions of newly minted iPhone subscribers, who are hungry for broadband access to utilize their smart phone’s full potential. Additionally, AT&T may be making some pre-emptive moves against Sprint. It’s widely known that Sprint is attempting to launch a nationwide WiMAX network. Assuming that get’s done (which might be a big assumption), Sprint conceivably will be in a position to provide a better broadband wireless experience than their competitors. With widescale access to Wi-Fi, AT&T customers may feel like they have enough and not be tempted to try Sprint’s new Xohm network.

If you take a look at AT&T’s latest quarterly numbers, you have to be impressed with the apparent competitive advantage that the iPhone has given them, at least initially. They added 6 million gross wireless subscribers, which is the best on record for quarterly growth in the wireless industry. That beat their 2006 4th quarter comparative number by almost 10%. They had a total net addition of 2.7 million subscribers, 1.2 million of which were postpaid net additions, which amounts to an impressive 37% gain from the previous year’s 4th quarter, also a record. Churn was also reduced by 10 basis points from the previous year’s 4th quarter. At the end of the 4th quarter, AT&T had 2 million iPhone customers. AT&T claims that 40% of those current iPhone customers came to AT&T from other carriers.

It’s somewhat difficult to draw comparisons to their chief rival Verizon, because Verizon won’t report 4th quarter results until January 28th. But it’s safe to say that the iPhone had a definite positive impact on their record growth numbers and provided them a solid competitive advantage. Its impact will surely grow as well, because AT&T reported that wireless data revenue grew by 57% and now represents 20% of their total wireless revenue and $12/month of wireless ARPU. The iPhone is a data heavy device and will only add to these data numbers. Early returns look good for AT&T and their decision to become the exclusive iPhone retailer.