Vodafone back down in messy Android row

It’s not often that the little people win a battle against a big corporate giant.  David versus Goliath scenarios in the business and consumer world generally only end one way.  With David splattered against the nearest wall and Goliath using David’s entrails as a skipping rope in some sort of mad victory dance.

Goliath in this case is Vodafone, who last week sent out an ‘update’ for HTC desire owners.  Desire owners hungrily grabbed the update thinking it was the much hyped Froyo software update for Android.  But it turned out, to howls of derision and dismay, that this update contained what many Desire owners called ‘Vodafone bloatware’.  The update merely consisted of several Vodafone apps that formed part of their ‘Vodafone 360′ venture.

Needless to say this absolutely infuriated HTC desire owners, prompting them to rage against the machine via Facebook, Twitter and any other form of communication they could get their hands on.  We swear we saw a carrier pigeon with a banner saying ’say no to Vodafone bloatware’ fly past our window.  Things got that bad.

But now it seems that David has given Goliath a swift dragon punch to the jaw and Vodafone, after previously standing by their decision, have decided to give HTC Desire owners the proper Froyo update in seven to ten days.  They will also roll out a ‘vanilla’ version of Froyo without that annoying ‘bloatware’ that people got so wound up about.  So, hopefully, when you upgrade your desire to run Froyo the update will also remove those pesky Vodafone apps.

So after a calamitous decision to force unwanted apps on their users Vodafone have done the decent thing and climbed down. So the lesson is clear.  If you are unhappy with network ‘bloatware’ clogging up your phone, get online and complain with everyone else.  It seems the power of the baying mob never goes out of fashion.