[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] dan1431:
This type of "will it be released, won't it be released" conversation is fascinating to me as we have no way of knowing, but by using our powers of reasoning we try to tease out what is actually at play and what Google and VZW are thinking/doing.

As I see it, the issue here is transparency, something that to date (at least) carriers/manufacturers/Google have had issues producing in any meaningful way. Yes HTC/Moto/Samsung do release a list of potential time frames for certain devices to be upgraded, but they are vague (probably by nature) and generally do not fulfill our needs are power users to better understand what the update will include and when within a more clear time frame than Q(whatever) the device will be updated.

Historically this has always been a big Android complaint and one that I myself have been annoyed with and I have owned Google Nexus branded device since the Nexus One became available directly from Google.

What I see here and sadly I am afraid it is not going to get better any time soon are two things at play, 1) Google/Samsung creating a SW update (4.0.4) and then submitting it to VZW for testing 2)VZW taking that submission and putting that update through its paces to ensure that it meet VZW QC requirements and that always seems to take a while.

Again, transparency is important (and I realize what I am about to suggest is a pipe dream but what the heck) but, it would be nice for VZW to say, after we receive a SW update from a manufacturer, it generally takes X day/weeks if we find nothing wrong with the update to roll it out to the masses.

It is transparent enough to get a sense of a timeframe without locking VZW down to specific date. In essence, okay, we know that Sammy has released an update for X device (as it hit the International Unlocked Devices) we now have approximately X amount of time (give or take) before we see it on VZW.

With regards to the GNex, if 4.04 rolled on the GSM variant than at least say, we are working on the 4.0.4 update to ensure proper user experience and functionality on our network, please bear with us, instead of silence.

Granted I work for different type of company, but we try to be proactive and as vocal as we can when it comes to software updates, patches, etc. We try and communicate with our clients and ensure that they at least have a rough idea of what is going on and not just sort of leave people in the dark with a buggy product.

At the end of the day, I do believe a SW update will push for the VZW GNex, what it will be or its relevance at the time is unknown, by the time it pushes we could be seeing the next iteration of Android and the update is just too late.

I was talking with a colleague just the other day about just this issue and how my employer makes things far more complex than mobile phones and we manage to turn out SW updates/patches and communicate with or users far more effectively than VZW/at&t/etc. and he said something to me that stuck with. He said, "the issue is we are end users and on the scale of things not very important, yes we pay our bills, but the carriers do not see keeping us informed as a value as we will stick with the company no matter what" and that IMHO is the real shame.

Dan