When Google announced that they were planning to build the Nexus One to run on any of the major carriers it was a threatening proposition for the carriers.  It threatened to change the very axis that the mobile world turned on (from the carrier to the phone manufacture).  I covered this threat in more detail earlier in the year.  Well somewhere in the Corporate HQ of Verizon, a champagne bottle went off.  Google announced that they are foregoing the direct sales of the Nexus One, and instead will be selling it through carriers.

I think the root of the problem is that Google attempted to serve two competing goals at the same time.  They wanted to both give power to the manufacturers and create more competition among the manufacturers.  They attempted to achieve this latter goal by creating an open-source operating system (Android) so that any and all manufacturers could have access to a stable, popular OS.  The problem is, you can’t win both of those battles.  Whether it was intentional or not, the growth and open availability of Android made the dominance of the Nexus One impossible.  Once a phone company could get exclusive rights to a phone like the Droid Incredible, they could flat out dismiss the Nexus One without repercussion.

I have proposed in the past that Google was attempting to change the world of voice in three ways (one, two (see above) and three).  Number 2 is no longer in play, now we’ll see what becomes of one and three.