So... Tmobile releases the G1 Evil phone (compare it to the Jesus phone from Apple...). Everyone looks at it and thinks "ugly!" but it has one feature that attracts a subsegment (those that do not care about the looks): the keyboard. It has a keyboard! Not like the iPhone! So who is supposed to buy a phone that has a keyboard? People that do email: business people (yep, those that do not care about the looks, consumers do). The G1 is an attack to the BlackBerry market, some say... Not for consumers.
Wrong.
I tried to buy it last night. I called Tmobile and they told me: "sir, you need to login to your account and buy it online". Fine. I can use a browser. I went online, logged in with our Funambol account and there was no way to buy the G1 (I actually wanted two, because I like to show off). So I called back and they said: "strange, it should be there, sir".
Then I thought "mmmh, let me try again with my personal account" (yes, I DO have a personal account with Tmobile, incredible as it sounds). Bingo, the box to buy the G1 was there. So I thought "mmmh, maybe I did not look in the right place". I tried again with the Funambol account and it was not there. Being a geek, I copied the URL from the personal account and tried to go in with the business account.
The message: "Sorry, you can't buy the phone with this account".
So I called back and I asked Tmobile: "do you allow business accounts to buy G1 or is it only for consumers?".
The answer: "I am not sure, sir, let me check". Five minutes after: "yep, we do not sell it to business accounts, but do not worry because we have plenty for the launch on October 22nd: we are selling now only black and brown, holding back all the white ones for the 22nd".
My comment: "Actually, consumers want cool white. Business want boring black and brown".
The answer was apologetic. We had a laugh and now I do not have a G1 waiting for me. But I found out it is a consumer device, not a business device. With the wrong specs. And the wrong color. At least the operating system is open source...
