• Business Week, Tuesday, December 4, 2007 11:31 AM

A week after announcing the decision to open its platform to mobile software developers, Verizon Wireless said it plans to support Google's new platform for cell phones and other mobile devices. The move represents a significant business strategy shift for the telecom giant. Indeed, Verizon's support was conspicuously absent when Google announced its Open Handset Alliance in early November, but in an abrupt about-face, Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam says: "We're planning on using Android...Android is an enabler of what we do."

So how did this come to pass? McAdam says that Verizon has been planning the change for some time, mostly due to his own cheerleading. McAdam and co. feel that opening the Verizon Wireless to handset and software developers will help spur subscriber growth, while eliminating the costly overhead of maintaining a closed network.

An open-access model will eliminate the need for having so many stores and so many customer-service representatives, as the burden of handset sales and customer relations shifts to handset makers. In turn, niche and lower-cost handset makers and will enter the market, expanding the total universe of subscribers.

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