Five years after the iPhone, carriers are the biggest threat to innovation

Very surprised to read this nugget. I had no idea Verizon was so culpable in Palm's implosion.

>Just look at the tragic story of Palm, which went from darling of CES 2009 to legendary failure in just 31 short months. The company initially wanted to ship its Pre smartphone on Verizon, but the carrier backed out and Palm was forced to languish on Sprint, where it was unable to compete directly against the iPhone. When Verizon finally picked up the Pre Plus the next year, the carrier ordered millions of devices and then flippantly refused shipment and decided to focus on the Motorola Droid, leaving Palm sitting on millions of unsold units that couldn't be used on any other carrier in the world. The decision cost Palm hundreds of million of dollars and led directly to the company selling itself to HP.

"When Verizon finally picked up the Pre Plus the next year, the carrier ordered millions of devices and then flippantly refused shipment and decided to focus on the Motorola Droid, leaving Palm sitting on millions of unsold units that couldn't be used on any other carrier in the world."

Was this breach of contract, or not? If Verizon's "flippant" refusal of shipment was permitted by the contract, then this is Palm's mismanagement. They should have negotiated terms that would have mitigated this risk, or insisted on "NO DEAL" precisely because of this risk.

Palm was a large company. They had lawyers - what were they doing and saying about this?

Carriers hate to be called as "dumb pipes" but unfortunately they have become the dumb pipes only. Any idea why Verizon blocked Google Wallet? Isn't it illegal?

I guess this post by MG Seigler is relevant here: http://parislemon.com/post/15604811641/why-i-hate-android

Before anyone makes any Ad Hominem comment, may I please request to focus on the point in that post relevant to the thread here?