Verizon is the No. 1 U.S. mobile operator with 89 million subscribers and its 3G network reaches 289 million people in North America. The vision of Verizon wireless broadband is open innovation through its 4G LTE network. Verizon has invested US$50 billion to set up the network and additional investments are made annually to improve the network. Using this strong and reliable platform, Verizon's new strategy for open innovation can be defined as developer community, LTE innovation center, and open development.
The developer community is an app store, which is a medium between developers and consumers. The developers can create apps and widgets on multiple platforms and distribute them to consumers. LTE innovation center is area where Verizon and consumers can experiment with new creative ideas. Lastly, the open development strategy makes traditional devices to use the Verizon network to communicate with other devices.
The new business development approach for Verizon is openness. Developer innovation and customer choices create an open environment. When consumers, small/medium businesses, enterprises and application developers work together, more innovation and benefits are made for everyone. Verizon seeks innovation in new products and services through an open environment to expand services and acquire more subscribers
The director of Verizon New Business Development department, Aditya Khurjekar, said, "Verizon has closely worked with Korean industry having a strong partnership with handset manufacturers like Samsung and LG. On the top of our relationship with Korean companies, we are now looking for innovative application developers to create unique customer experiences." During a Q&A session, Khurjekar answered the question for the reason that Verizon has chosen LTE as their 4G network platform. He responded, "The choice of LTE was based on our strategic factor being part of global ecosystem. LTE has become a global standard, and as we go forward, we are shifting to a new 4G LTE network system."
