Google No Longer Selling Nexus One Online

What you need to know:
• When the Nexus One launched, they were poised to revolutionize the mobile industry by offering the device independent from carriers, shifting the attention to which device you wanted, not which carrier had the device you wanted.
• This would then drive carriers to step up their game, because customers could get the device they wanted, and pick the carrier that was best.
• Unfortunately, Google consistently delivered poor numbers on the Nexus One.
• Now, Google is pulling the online Nexus One store, and sending customers to carriers to sign up for service just as we're all used to.

I'm pretty upset this didn't take. It had a lot of potential, and I feel like it's one of those things that just needed more time. The phone didn't even launch with all the carriers available. By the time they did, they replaced the Nexus One with the Droid Incredible on Verizon, and the EVO 4G on Sprint. Eventually, if they had launched with every carrier available, carriers would have realized that they had to step it up in order not to lose business, but unfortunately, that just wasn't the case. Hopefully we'll see some kind of resurgence soon, otherwise we're all stuck in the carrier's stranglehold for the foreseeable future.

Full post from the Google Blog down below.

Nexus One changes in availability

5/14/2010 09:30:00 AM

We launched Nexus One in January with two goals in mind: to introduce a beacon of innovation among Android handsets, and to make it quick and easy for people to buy an Android phone. We’re very happy with the adoption of Android in general, and the innovation delivered through Nexus One. Already, a lot of the innovation that went into creating Nexus One has found its way into numerous Android handsets, like the HTC Evo 4G from Sprint and the Verizon Droid Incredible by HTC.

But, as with every innovation, some parts worked better than others. While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not. It’s remained a niche channel for early adopters, but it’s clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone, and they also want a wide range of service plans to chose from.

So today we’re announcing the following changes:

More retail availability. As we make Nexus One available in more countries we’ll follow the same model we’ve adopted in Europe, where we're working with partners to offer Nexus One to consumers through existing retail channels. We’ll shift to a similar model globally.

From retail to viewing. Once we have increased the availability of Nexus One devices in stores, we'll stop selling handsets via the web store, and will instead use it as an online store window to showcase a variety of Android phones available globally.

Innovation requires constant iteration. We believe that the changes we're announcing today will help get more phones to more people quicker, which is good for the entire Android ecosystem: users, partners and also Google.