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A Recent Verizon Discovery: A Free App?
So, I was perusing the Verizon site recently trying to figure out where each line was in it's contract. My main line is up for the $100 new-every-two discount and the secondary line can upgrade in three months!. That's not what I discovered, although it is pleasant news.
I discovered that one of the applications for download, called Backup Assistant, is free if you're a "My Account" customer. That simply means that you use the online billing and, likely, have signed up for email bills. Normally, Backup Assistant costs $1.99, which is not much on it's own.
What does Backup Assistant do? Well, it allows you to backup your contacts to an online location and, should you lose your phone, restore them to another phone. Useful, but not too exciting, right? Well, it does this automatically on a schedule every day, if you want it to.
Additionally, you can go to the online Verizon site to edit contacts and add new ones, which will then be synchronized down to your phone either when you choose to or when you log out. This all works pretty well, too.
Now, the interesting thing about this is that Verizon can waive the fee that is shown when the application is downloading. Given how the BREW system works, this probably means they're actually footing the bill to QUALCOMM and, as a consequence, to the developer. In this case, the developer is FusionOne. That's a pretty good deal for them. That said, it's not really any different than Verizon paying any particular vendor for a service that they offer on their network, either free of charge or for a fee. It's just that, in this case, it's a normal BREW application download that's being treated differently based on something else the user has done.
I'll be watching my bill for the charge, though, in case the system has some kinks in it. ;)
Posted by Shane on April 6, 2007 8:16 AM | Permalink
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