The iPhone for your home phoneline?
Source: saunderslog.com
John Sculley touted his OpenFrame phone at CES yesterday, positioning it as the iPhone for the home phoneline. It’s a nice looking phone no doubt, and he says he’s lining up carriers for distribution.
I have my doubts it will succeed.
- High end phones for home have never sold that well. When I was part of the Windows CE group at Microsoft we built one of these devices in the late 1990’s. Codenamed Hermes, it sported a touch screen, address book, internet connectivity and more. The bill of materials costs for the phone put it out of the reach of the average consumer, so we cancelled the project. Most every other phone like it since has been canned for the same reasons.
- The landline is a dying beast. All the trends today point to mobile phones as the phones of the future.
Speaking as a dinosaur who still owns a land line, and a gadget freak, I might buy one of your phones John. There’s probably a few more folks like me out there too. Just don’t expect mainstream America to be snapping these up.
