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Brier Duddley of the Seatles Times spent some times chatting with the man behind AT&T’s exclusive deal for the iPhone. The point man on the iPhone project is Glenn Lurie, 41, grew up in Portland and graduated from Seattle Pacific University in 1987 and married into a Bellingham family. Lurie already has an iPhone but could not even bring the device with him for the interview.

According to Lurie, we won’t be disappointed with the browsing capabilities of the iPhone. The expectations are very high. A real good browser would really make this device a killer. But be prepared to open your wallet once again. If the iPhone browser is that good, you will absolutely need the AT&T’s unlimited package to surf all they day long.

Here’s an excerpt of the interview:

Q: What’s your favorite iPhone feature?

A: I don’t know if I can answer that. It’s a pretty incredible browsing environment. That’s the first part that I think will blow people away. It’s the first widescreen iPod they’ve ever done; it is very, very good, works extremely well.

I think the other thing people haven’t really thought through is that Apple’s so good at simplifying things. That’s just what they’re known for; they’ve really simplified the phone. The standard phone applications are really intuitive, whether it’s receiving a phone call, putting that person on hold, adding another party and bringing a conference call together.

Q: Won’t the full-powered browser hurt AT&T? People won’t need to use its services as much — they’ll just pull things from the Web, instead of calling directory assistance, for example.

A: No, actually it won’t. I think it will be great for us, and here’s why. One of the things with this device — people are going to be asked to have an unlimited package — people are going to have to have a package with us to browse. That’s one good thing for everybody.

I think this is going to create a new way people use handheld devices because the browsing experience is as good as the PC browsing experience. So I think it’s not going to hurt us at all. I’m excited about what it will do for the industry in terms of how people view mobile browsing.

Read the full interview here.