That's the crushing effect of Verizon embracing your android too tightly.
 

Speaking as someone who is stuck on the Verizon network I say THANK GOD. My biggest complaint with Verizon is their OS. They have it on every phone and it's an unwieldy piece of crap. They might be a corporate super giant but they seem to be realizing that people don't like being fucked with. At first we just wanted good service, this is now their advertising corner stone. Then we had to teach that when you say unlimited you have to mean it [slashdot.org]. So they might be looking at things like Android and seriously consider it. A better OS for their phones that other people will take care of for them? Sounds like a good deal. I just hope to see something good from them soon because their iPhone want-a-be is the best they have and it still sucks [verizonwireless.com]

Ok, I get it now. I've been trying to figure out why a company that is so closed and so anti-consumer most of the time (I happen to be a current subscriber and hate them, especially after they automatically extended my contract when I got married and wanted to consolidate cell phone plans with my wife, who was also a Verizon customer) would be suddenly opening up their network, not restricting software, etc. After reading these quotes from the article, though, I do get it now.

When Verizon Wireless was founded in 2000, it ran 27 call centers to provide customer service. The company cut back to as few as 17 centers at one point, but the count is now back to 25, each with about a thousand employees. The company's 2,300 stores, staffed by 20,000 employees, are also costly. While workers in those stores used to spend nearly the entire day signing up new customers, now only a tenth of their time is consumed by new subscribers. Instead, the bulk of their energy goes to helping current subscribers with questions and problems. McAdam & Co. decided the business model was not sustainable. "If we get to 150 million customers, boy, that's a lot of overhead," says McAdam.

In an open-access model, though, Verizon Wireless won't offer the same level of customer service as it does for the roughly 50 phone models featured in its handset lineup. Though the company will insist on testing all phones developed to run on its network in the open-access program, Verizon plans only to ensure the wireless connection is working for customers who buy those devices. "They have to talk to their handset provider or their application provider if they have particular issues," McAdam says.

Reading between the lines, you can tell they don't like the fact that they have to support their customers. Things were great when they were just signing up customers right and left and didn't have to do much support, but now that they have to actually support their subscribers they don't like it. So basically, this "opening" is just a way for them to support their customers even less, and dump as much of the support on the handset providers as possible. The company strategy is still about helping the consumer as little as possible and screwing them over as much as possible; it just happens that that is now most easily done with an open network.

Android uses Java Standard Edition, not Micro. And I don't see much foundation for that speculation: Android is built on Java not the other way around.

There's no OS built on Java here. The emulator runs a custom JVM on top of Linux.

Sprint and T-Mobile are already members [openhandsetalliance.com] (as I think other comments have pointed out).

So, who's to say if "the wirelss connection is working" - The customer? Verizon? The device itself? Application support? What kind of sense does THAT make? I can't hold a call for 5 blocks in a downtown urban area, but because my 'phone provider says the coverage maps report solid coverage, the problem of course must be my handset -- which of course they can replace with a "newer, better model" for just $199.95.

Let's look at this model applied to computers and internet access (which is pretty much what a phone is, a small computer connecting to a network)

So, who's to say if "the internet connection is working" - the customer? Comcast? the computer itself? Windows/Linux support? Makes sense to me, we deal with this all the time! Would you rather that ISP's sold rigorously tested locked down PCs that they could give customer support on? Or would you rather that connection and your computer remained separate, so you contact them when your internet SERVICE doesn't work, and contact the computer/application developers for support when the device doesn't work.

I think the problem is that people are so used to being fucked by phone companies, its hard to see how things should be. Ideally, service should be completely separate from the device. Yes, you would now have to trust two different entities, the service company for connectivity and the device maker for a robust device, but we seem to do this just fine with TV and computers.

It looks like they are trying to move away from the locked down phones for greedy reasons, but if it works out that way its better for us. If they are actually doing this, I see it as a good thing for competition and the abysmal situation in the US for cell service. Whether or not they actually go through with it only time will tell :)