Ladies and gentlemen of the international community, are you
ready? After a hugely successful launch
in the United States (as well as tons of hype in the media and a lot of complaints from the general public), the iPhone is coming to Europe. So who gets it where?

If you use T-Mobile Deutschland (Germany), O2 (Great Britain) or Orange SA (France), you get to use the iPhone!  Don’t you feel lucky? 

The details of the iPhone agreements were actually pretty
fascinating, and it shows just how much power Apple yields in the consumer
electronics world thanks to the success of the iPod. Granted, I don’t know a lot about how mobile
phones are paid for (I just know I got mine for free with my mobile coverage plan),
but apparently Apple is doing things in an unusual manner. Here are the interesting details noted by
Sci-Tech Today:

• Carriers pay 10 percent of revenues from calls and data transfers to Apple.
• The iPhone is not sold at operator-subsidized prices (the discount that allows people to get free or low-cost phones).
• According to research firm iSuppli, about $334 of each $599 iPhone is profit, excluding distribution and development costs.

How insane is that? I
know Apple is used to fat profit margins in the PC world. Apple is also known for doing things their
way, no matter what everyone else might say, which makes Apple a difficult
corporation to partner with (to be as polite as possible). In fact, Apple’s insistence is the reason why
there wasn’t a pan-Europe launch.

At one point, Vodafone, the largest wireless carrier on the
planet, had reportedly been steaming ahead in negotiations for pan-European
iPhone distribution, but those talks apparently fell through.

Two reported sticking points had been the large share of
revenue for Apple and restrictions on carrier content. In addition, Vodafone
has been concentrating on 3G devices, while the iPhone currently uses the
slower 2.5G EDGE technology.

(Carolina) Milanesi said that an iPhone deal "didn’t really fit in
with the Vodafone DNA." That company, she noted, has been emphasizing
services, and Apple’s insistence on restricting content runs counter to that
effort. Also, she said that Vodafone has been pushing its own brand of devices.

It remains to be seen if Apple’s thorny relationship with
content providers (see also iTunes) will hinder the company in the future. Right now, Apple is in the driver’s seat with
the iPhone, but Apple has a longstanding corporate history of screwing up a
good thing (though at least the 300-page phone bills are history). Steve Jobs’ Midas touch can’t
last forever.

Image Credit:  ZDnet