Dvir Reznik | The (old) Blog

It’s no secret that Apple’s iPhone has revolutionized the mobile scene, in all three fronts: device makers, cellular operator and consumers. In Israel there are some 50,000 iPhones, all purchased abroad of course – the local Apple distributor, iDigital, is not bringing the coveted device.

In July 2009 the 3 largest cellular operators (Cellcom, Orange and Pelephone) in Israel announced they’ll be bringing the iPhone to Israel, and since then the country is in mini-chaos. Rumors are flying, prices are still un-known, apps developers are in high demand, marketing campaigns are on hold and everyone are waiting to see when will the iPhone hit the stores and at what cost. Presumably each operator committed to selling 100,000 devices a year (300,000 together), a serious amount – considering Israel’s best-seller, Nokia’s N95, sold 150,000 devices in 18 months. Since Apple are overseeing the marketing campaign, the main differentiators in my opinion will be the overall packaging and service – which operator will create the best eco-system around it to support its iPhone users.

Orange will kick-off an interesting contest next week, Orange StartApp, in which 3 winning developers will receive 10,000 US$ each and 1 of them will get a full Orange campaign to promote its iPhone application in Israel. The contest will start Monday Sep. 21st for 3 months (until Dec. 21st), and any developer with an account at Apple Store can submit his/her applications in 1 of 3 categories: Entertainment, Business and Location and Local Content.

Orange definitely took a step ahead of the pack, by harnessing the power of the developers community – one of the iPhone’s key success factors. The operator that will build a bigger eco-system around it, will probably win more votes, not to mention ‘calling shot-gun’ on the local developers community. With Apple controlling every move of the launch, the 3 operators have very little space to navigate and diffrentiate themselves – Winter is gonna be very interesting, that’s for sure.