What is branding all about, make it more generic a...

Question

Nokia and other manufacturers produced great phones. But branding the phones has allowed service providers the opportunity to modify or even disable great features that the phones are capable of.
(N95)
Some service providers are still only offering V11.0.0.xxx or V12.0.0.xxx. ( bit out of date )
I have an unbranded N95, which works with any UK operator and have upgraded to V20.0.0.15 (Battery life and usability greatly improved)
The Nokia forums Are full of "Why Can I not upgrade Blaa Blaa Blaa"
I fully understand why they are P***ed off.
Why do the SP's not understand this, and stop the branding, and allow the consumer the ability to chose??
#This is only a very personal point of view, but may make a lot off "p***ed off people very happy if SPs odopted this option??
LoL, dona wana
dona wana by a branded phone!!
Any comments welcome
Some things in life are guaranteed, but can you claim on them?

Answer 1

The operator's primary tools for trying to "encourage" customer to stick with them are:
- long-term contracts
- SIM locks on devices they subsidize (sell or donate below cost, for them)
If you get a long-term contract with a subsidized device, and do not use it, you're a customer that causes them to lose money. The SIM lock is there to make that less likely (more difficult).
The main reason operators do more than that - branding, customization - is differentiation; they want to promote/advertise their own brand and services over their competition and "generic" services by the device manufacturers or anyone on the Internet.
Those are their tools to get people to sign up for the contracts and their tariffs (to get back the money they already "lost" on customer acquistion, device subsidy, and to make a profit, too.)
They want users to think that the operator brand and services are what people really want, and not the device (device manufacturer's name.
And of course they have to believe that their services are so much better than their competitors, and also "generic" or indepdendent services. (Of course, sometimes, the operator can have really good, first-class services that are better than anyone else's. Most of them probably aren't.)
In other words, their browser homepage - or "portal" - has everything people should use, their email is better than any other you can find on the Internet, their VoIP service is best (or if they don't have such a service, they'd rather see it disabled entirely on the device), etc.
As long as enough consumers go for this, and sign up for the long-term contracts and customized/branded devices, the operators will continue at it. When it is no longer worth it (when it starts to make them lose money overall - not just in the case of specific individuals - rather than making money, they'll stop).
Message Edited by petrib on 09-Dec-200701:13 PM