Well, it finally happened.. Today is the day that many an iPhone fan has been waiting for. The iPhone is now available on the Verizon network! It has been hailed for years as the day that Apple would have access to the 93 million subscribers in the US and annihilate any other smartphone on the market ( or that is what Apple would like to have you believe ).

After hearing this news today though, I paused and thought about exactly what this might mean to other mobile OS platforms on the market and in particular, Android. In short, I believe it really does little to harm the adoption of Android.

Here’s why:

1. Android Has Gained Adoptance : Android has been steadily cementing itself as a true contender to the iPhone throughout 2010. Last quarter it outsold the iPhone in number of units sold both in the US and worldwide. Here in the US it’s a little closer, but worldwide Android is being purchased well more than iPhone and is closing in on Symbian.

Why does this matter? The iPhone on Verizon will use CDMA technology. The possible number of carriers and subscribers able to use CDMA is much smaller than what is currently used with a competing technology called GSM. GSM is more portable ( pop your sim card out and move to another phone ), is used by vastly more carrier worldwide and more importantly GSM allows for simultaneous data AND voice to occur at the same time. Remember those iPhone commercials where people are able to call someone AND surf the web at the same time? You won’t be able to do this on the iPhone with Verizon.

2. IPhone not a 4G Device : Not only will the iPhone on Verizon be a CDMA device, it won’t be running on the new LTE (4G) network that the Android smartphone coming out around the same time will be on. What does this mean? If users are looking for fast download speeds ( 12 – 25 Mb/s ), they should skip the iPhone and purchase one of the many Android devices with LTE on the market.

3. Users Are Stubborn : It’s hard for users to change devices. So many of Verizon’s users have bought Android phones. In fact, many phones were probably just bought this past holiday season. Sorry Apple, but these users are now Android users. If the iPhone would have been on Verizon BEFORE, say Thanksgiving or even earlier in the year, it would have carried more weight. But the millions of Android devices ( recall that 300,000 A DAY were being activated at one point ) this past holiday season are now Android users and as we all know, it’s very hard to get a user to convert from one platform to another.

4. Competition is good : The assumption has been all along that when the iPhone came to Verizon, the other platforms would not be able to step up and compete. If there is one thing that I have seen in the past year is that competition in the smartphone market forces companies to innovate and create new products, new ways of solving problems and new technology. Look at Windows Phone 7 for example. Microsoft has put out a very solid device in the face of strict competition. It’s still a first stab ( arguable a much better first stab than Google’s own G1 in 2008 ) and Microsoft is innovating by trying a different design approach and user experience than both Apple and Google. Likewise with Palm WebOS V2. It’s a risk, but something that companies need to do to compete. With the iPhone coming to Verizon, it just means that Google MUST continue to improve Android. It’s a win for Android users!

5. Need Other Carriers Besides Verizon : There is still T-Mobile, Sprint and many other networks around the world that after today still DON’T have the iPhone! Even though we will see many hundreds of millions of user’s having access to the iPhone while staying on a network running CDMA technology, there’s still many, many hundreds of millions more potential user’s that this announcement doesn’t affect. If the iPhone were suddenly announced on all of the carriers in the US and worldwide that Android devices were, this would be much more of a threat.

Some people might read this as a negative article, but in reality I welcome the iPhone to Verizon! The more devices that are accessible to user, regardless of the network are better for consumers. This whole idea of “exclusive” devices per carrier is quite maddening. Owning and using both an Android device and an iPhone, I enjoy each for its own merits. At the end of the day, people will buy what devices they enjoy using and won’t have to deal with carriers exclusive terms. I dream of a day when all phones are available on any network and the consumer has true choice. Until that day though, we’ll have to wait years for an announcement like we heard today and realize that things that maybe seemed so ground breaking in a carrier controlled world, actually aren’t all that special. If things were just more open from the beginning ( imagine the market share Apple would have today if the iPhone was available on all networks back in January of 2007! ), we would have increased competition, advancement in the technology and announcements like we heard today won’t be such a… hmm, what’s the word? meh.