• Ad Age, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 10:19 AM

Verizon Communications is melding its residential and business landline units -- Verizon Telecom and Verizon Business -- in an effort to move "marketing execution closer to customer-facing operations, while retaining the benefits of centralized management of key marketing issues."

As part of the restructuring, John Stratton, who was Verizon's marketing chief companywide, will assume duties for plugging the company's mobile offerings exclusively, Rita Chang reports. A company spokesman says he does not know when Verizon will name a CMO for its non-wireless business.

Industry analysts say that having a dedicated marketing chief for wireless is a good move for Verizon. "They're shedding the structure that worked in the old days, and [Stratton] will now have a clear direction for a major business," says Bob Rosenberg, head of Insight Research Corp.

In other wireless news yesterday, Verizon says it will support Google's Android, which means that the mobile OS will be available on all the major wireless carriers in the U.S., except AT&T, the home of the iPhone, writes Saul Hansell in the New York Times' "Bits" blog.

Verizon's new Android phones will support Google Voice, an application that lets users create a single phone number that works with all of their telephone lines and cellular devices.

And the Los Angeles Times' David Sarno reports that AT&T reversed a previous decision and will now let iPhone users make Internet calls over its network on services such as Skype.

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