While Stofega reasoned that T-Mobile's marketing dollars have probably been a fraction of Verizon's, he said T-Mobile tried to push the hip-ness factor effectively with actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, and should have benefited some from , a favorite device of young users on T-Mobile's network.

"It's obvious sex-appeal just isn't working for them, even with the associations of the Sidekick and Paris Hilton giving them bling," Stofega said.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld . Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed@matthamblen or subscribe to . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com .

in Computerworld's Mobile and Wireless Knowledge Center.