Archive for Symbian
by Ewan Spence
July 3, 2008 at 7:06 am · Filed under Nokia, Open Source, Symbian, UIQ, Sony Ericsson
With hindsight, if the Symbian partners had made the move to open source the base OS, the triumvirate of user interfaces, and place all the developer tools and knowledge in a single place a year ago, it would have been seen as leading the way in the mobile. And while the pragmatist knows that this move will have been months in the planning, it looks a touch more defensive than it actually is.
Make no bones about it, this is a big deal. Imagine if Microsoft suddenly decided to make Vista open source. To commit to putting out every line of code under an open source licence such as the Eclipse Public Licence)
Nokia had made the move to buy out the remaining partners in Symbian, thus gaining control and ownership of the company; it’s IP – primarily the Symbian OS; and the staff. The staff would become Nokia employees, and the operating system would be placed into the Symbian Foundation, and over a two year period it would be made fully open source, alongside the S60, UIQ and MOAP user interfaces (which eventually would be integrated into a single UI, the unified platform of Symbian OS, due in 2010).
In the short term, not much is going to change. The manufacturers have their product line-ups sorted for the festive season and into 2009. The Symbian OS has a strong roadmap, with updates roughly every six months to the base code will remain. Long term the per handset fee (of roughly $5 a unit) will be removed, all the code will be visible, and a unified UI will help the developer base focus on making more programs, rather than make one program run on more than one UI.
It’s the medium term where it gets interesting; the point where Symbain does the switch over, and could (if not managed correctly) take their eye off the ball with all the management meetings and staff re-orientation. There’s also the fact that the UIQ interface is now effectively dead – the unified UI will be based on S60 and take elements of UIQ and MOAP. UIQ have laid off a little more than half their staff, and I wouldn’t expect to see another major iteration of UIQ now – which leaves Sony Ericsson with a phone OS that could now be at a dead end.
It’s certainly interesting times, and a bit of a gamble on Nokia’s part, but tat the very least they’re only gambling the same amount of money they would pay Symbian in licence fees over a year or so. So financially it’s worth taking.
And if they can establish Symbian OS as the default OS (just as MS-Dos did) then it will pay off in spades.
by Ewan Spence
February 11, 2008 at 10:49 am · Filed under User Interface, Microsoft, Symbian, Motorola, 2008, Hardware, Mobile World Congress, UIQ, Sony Ericsson
The Mobile World Congress is all about raising eyebrows – with s many new phones, services, products and ideas being announced, pre-announced or reaching the public’s hands in Barcelona this week, you need to make some big moves if you want to get noticed. Nokia, as expected, have rolled out a veritable smorgasbord of phones, social networks and product options that they can capture the news cycle for a few hours.
Other Symbian partners joined in as well, with handsets from LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson all announcing on Sunday night, probably to get some time in the blogosphere before the Finnish juggernaut arrives. But what pricked up my ‘Industry Radar’ was Sony Ericsson’s non-Symbian phone, the Xperia 1. Not because it’s a metal encased handset, nor the qwerty keyboard or the ‘arc slider.’ It’s the operating system.
This is Sony Ericsson’s first Windows Mobile powered device.
For a company that is so closely associated with Symbian OS, to the point of buying the UIQ interface from Symbian and setting it up as a subsidiary company (and then bringing Motorola into the UIQ fold by splitting the company 50/50 with then), this is a very interesting piece of news.
The strategy behind it bears thinking about, because I don’t think this is the action of a company that’s upset with Symbian. The answer may lie in one of Symbian’s fundamental problems – the US market just doesn’t get Symbian OS. The idea of getting a beach-head in the US mobile market with some high end UIQ devices (either by Sony Ericsson or Motorola), in small numbers, has already cropped up here on Mobile Messaging 2.0.
This could very well be an extension of the idea. If the consumer isn’t particularly focused on a specific operating system on their phone, then let’s establish the beach-head with the Sony Ericsson name, rather than with our Operating System prowess.
I’d expect to see the handset debut in the second half of the year, and the marketing should cast some light on Sony Ericsson’s expectations and positing of the Xperia 1 handset. Of course I could be missing something obvious – have you any thoughts on the Microsoft / Sony Ericsson handset?
by Ewan Spence
December 9, 2007 at 8:15 pm · Filed under Mobile messaging 2.0, Mobile Email, Instant Messaging, Communication, Symbian, Messaging, WIMM
While at the recent Nokia World conference, both Darla Mack and I decided to ask a number of people just what a mobile message was? Darla’s posted up her responses, but I shall now do mine in the form of a podcast and the spoken word. Over to our guests to find out their thoughts…
MM20 Podcast: What Is A Mobile Message [00:03:05m]:
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by Ewan Spence
November 23, 2007 at 10:47 am · Filed under Devices, Mobile Tech, Platforms, Software, ARPU, iPhone, Google, Apple, Instant Messaging, Openmoko, Communication, Convergence, Symbian
The launch of Android, and the Open Handset Alliance (primarily with Google and over 30 other partners) has prompted a huge amount of discussion around the internet, from Telecoms Analysts, Industry Watehrs, Developers and enthusiatic bloggers. That’s been reflected here on Mobile Messaging 2.0.
So what exactly is the impact of this in the mobile space? Debi Jones and I sat down to discuss that very topic in our latest podcast.
Google, Android and the Implications - MM2.0 With Debi Jones and Ewan Spence:
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by Ewan Spence
November 9, 2007 at 3:07 pm · Filed under Devices, Platforms, Google, Nokia, Palm, Symbian, Motorola
Google’s news on the Open HandsetAlliance last week (www.openhandsetalliance.com) is a little bit like a firecracker. A big bright glow of news, and then a long wait until the results are seen in handsets – tentatively penciled in for Q4 2008 (but expect that to slip). Much like the iPhone, there are contrasting views around the telecoms world on just what this announcement could mean to the landscape.
Let’s face it, this isn’t the first time that a Linux operating system has been proposed… to name one high profile candidate how about Access (nee Palm’s) vapourware like version of Palm OS? Nor is it one with a Java middleware or application suite – Sava JE went down that road (and actually had Java right to the kernel as well). That set the world alight in case you hadn’t noticed.
Symbian, initially the company with the most to loose, have already decried the endeavour as lacking experience. “About every three months this year there has been a mobile Linux initiative of some sort launched,†Symbian’s VP of Strategy, John Forsyth, tells the BBC. “It’s a bit like the common cold. It keeps coming round and then we go back to business. We don’t participate in these full stop. We make our own platform and we are focused on driving that into the mobile phone market at large ever more aggressively.â€
And as long as Nokia continue to use Symbian, they’ll be okay.
What’s more interesting to watchers of Symbian (launched in 1999 with Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and Psion all holding an equal stake), is that two of the current licencees, Samsung and Motorola, are involved. While Samsung has always kept Symbian at arm’s length, the involvement of Motorola is going to, yet again, draw attention to Motorola’s haphazard strategy for smartphones. Only last month saw Motorola invest heavily into the Symbian ecosystem with their purchase of 50% of UIQ, an interface layer from Symbian OS.
Of course Symbian now has 8 manufacturers licensing their ‘Open Mobile Operating System,’ and a further 134 partners in their Platinum Program (which includes Google!). That puts the Open Mobile Alliance’s 34 partners into context. While yes, platforms have come and gone, they always say past performance is not an indication of future prospects, we shouldn’t be writing off Google just because we’ve seen something similar before.
After all, Altavista was pretty good as well.
by Ewan Spence
October 21, 2007 at 5:09 pm · Filed under Nokia, CTIA, Symbian, Motorola
Looking forward to CTIA, there’s one question I want to be able to answer, and that’s the strategy Motorola are following. Last week’s announcement that they have purchased 50% of UIQ from Sony Ericsson, and that the two companies are looking for a third to joiningg them in owning UIQ makes for interesting reading.
Motorola’s high-end mobile strategy has been scattershot at best, with strong efforts in using Linux for smartphones and Java in other handsets. So is the choice to go with UIQ attempting to cover another base, internal politics at play, or a reset of their strategy?
What is clear is that Motorola, a founding partner in Symbian who sold their share of the organization in 2003 to allow a ‘neutral’ look at the main OS choices (including Windows Mobile), has found a way to reconcile the purchase of UIQ (which Sony Ericcson bought out of Symbian last year), and that leads me to think they’re on course to put a lot of effort behind Symbian OS and UIQ.
And this is where CTIA is going to come in. Symbian, UIQ and Motorola are all on the floor, and while it’s obvious from last week’s Symbian Smartphone Show that the European companies are excited to have them on board, the reaction form the American side of Motorola is going to be a big factor in just how important the UIQ relationship is.
For too long Symbian has been looking at the American market and metaphorically humming “New York, New York†(If I can make it there…). Nokia have never established a solid enough beachhead beyond the pay as you go market, and some isolated breakouts of the N95 and E61i – with Motorola already dug into the US market, if they’re serious they could give Symbian the place in the US market they feel they deserve.
So all I want to know when I leave the Moscone Center in San Francisco this week is if Motorola really have the hunger….
