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Sony Ericsson Bails on Symbian
- Thread starter fiwigas
- Start date
Becky_Phoenix
New member
all of the failboat!!!!
Bleed for Me.
New member
Why is this news? Even Nokia has moved on to meego for future high end phones.
confusedd.
New member
I'm guessing Samsnug and SE will resume making Symbian phones when S^4 is finished.
I doesn't sound like they have dropped the format, more like they will take a wait and see approach. If the N8 with Symbian 3 sells well, they will have a product avalible soon, if it doesn't then it won't.
But I don't think that it will drop symbian totaly, Symbian is huge in Japan, plus they haven't anounced anything about leaving the Symbian Foundation.
But I don't think that it will drop symbian totaly, Symbian is huge in Japan, plus they haven't anounced anything about leaving the Symbian Foundation.
monsterjamp
New member
Also to add, the article is akin to asking Sony and Microsoft about the next Playstation and XBox. Then saying that both company's are leaving the video game industry, because both will say that they don't have any upcoming products.
Think about it another way. Sony Ericsson competed against Nokia in smartphones using Symbian for the better part of a decade and was absolutely killed. They don't have a cohesive software strategy like Nokia, they don't have software services like the Ovi Store, Ovi Maps, Ovi Music, etc. to offer their customers as Nokia reserves those for its own customers as differentiating factors. They also cannot compete with Nokia's ability to deliver software in general, because as bad as Nokia is Sony Ericsson is 10 times worse. They cannot compete with Nokia on economies of scale, logistics or anything else either.
Sony Ericsson is still only barely treading water with its new Android strategy. Nokia assassinated them with Symbian.
Honestly, I don't expect that any vendors will ever use Symbian except for Nokia. It's not that Symbian is bad per se, I rather like it and obviously a lot of other people like it too, but that nobody can really expect to compete with Nokia here. You're not going to beat Goliath up with his own club. Sony Ericsson is trying the sling shot.
Sony Ericsson is still only barely treading water with its new Android strategy. Nokia assassinated them with Symbian.
Honestly, I don't expect that any vendors will ever use Symbian except for Nokia. It's not that Symbian is bad per se, I rather like it and obviously a lot of other people like it too, but that nobody can really expect to compete with Nokia here. You're not going to beat Goliath up with his own club. Sony Ericsson is trying the sling shot.
Meggers <3
New member
absolutely no chance of that....well I should say less than 1% chance.
Greatest smile ever~MJ
New member
did you say Nokia has a "cohesive software strategy"? Did you write that with a straight face?
No one respects Symbian because Symbian is associated with Nokia. No one ever believes now that Symbian is a vendor neutral platform.
Nokia should have taken services like Ovi Store, Ovi Maps, Ovi Music and turn them into vendor neutral service and share them with all Symbian partners like Samsung and Sony Ericsson.
That's the difference between Nokia and Google here. Google did not monopolize its services---GMail, Maps, Search, Earth, Sky Maps, Android Market, and say its only for Google branded phones like Nexus One. Every member of the Open Handset Alliance, has equal access to the Android Market, and you can put Google Apps into any handset as long they meet Google's hardware compatibility requirements, e.g. GPS, wifi, and so on.
It was Nokia who lacked a cohesive platform management strategy in the first place. What would Android be if Google did what Nokia did?
Here, you can take the OS.
But the mail service, the map service, the app store, the music service, you make it all on your own.
What's the immediate effect of that?
Either you fracture the platform, hugely and immediately---which is what happened to Symbian anyway, And you cause one vendor to massively overcome the others, which is also what happened.
You want to know why Sony Ericsson, Samsung, etc,. are going with Android and Windows Phone, is because at least Google and Microsoft are vendor neutral.
It looks like Nokia has no clue how to manage a platform and I got every doubt about Symbian Foundation.
This isn't about just having open sourced code. Its about equal access to the apps. There is no sign that SF and Nokia got it.
Nokia should have taken services like Ovi Store, Ovi Maps, Ovi Music and turn them into vendor neutral service and share them with all Symbian partners like Samsung and Sony Ericsson.
That's the difference between Nokia and Google here. Google did not monopolize its services---GMail, Maps, Search, Earth, Sky Maps, Android Market, and say its only for Google branded phones like Nexus One. Every member of the Open Handset Alliance, has equal access to the Android Market, and you can put Google Apps into any handset as long they meet Google's hardware compatibility requirements, e.g. GPS, wifi, and so on.
It was Nokia who lacked a cohesive platform management strategy in the first place. What would Android be if Google did what Nokia did?
Here, you can take the OS.
But the mail service, the map service, the app store, the music service, you make it all on your own.
What's the immediate effect of that?
Either you fracture the platform, hugely and immediately---which is what happened to Symbian anyway, And you cause one vendor to massively overcome the others, which is also what happened.
You want to know why Sony Ericsson, Samsung, etc,. are going with Android and Windows Phone, is because at least Google and Microsoft are vendor neutral.
It looks like Nokia has no clue how to manage a platform and I got every doubt about Symbian Foundation.
This isn't about just having open sourced code. Its about equal access to the apps. There is no sign that SF and Nokia got it.
s a m a n t h a
New member
Why are they staying in the Foundation, though? Hedging their bets?
Lagore Kah
New member
Google will not be neutral for long, they really seem to dislike what the manufacturers add to Android and with 3.0 hopefully will be more restrictive. Besides Ericsson really sucks, now the update to 2.1 will be delayed and for X10 it will be the last update.
Nokia definitely went this way for a reason, though. It wasn't ineptitude or the fact that they didn't get it. They get it very well. In fact, they are making an effort to prioritize software services as part of a diversified revenue stream.
In the meantime, though, their primary business is making money by selling devices. It's likely that this will always be, at least substantially, the case. This is the case for SE, Motorola, Samsung, LG, etc. too, and as such they are direct competitors. If Nokia gave its competitors a store and maps and all that stuff for nothing, they'd be spending a ton of money to bolster the competition's position at great cost to themselves.
Proliferating the platform for everyone's benefit at your own cost is crazy. That's why Nokia bought out the part of Symbian that they didn't own and made it their own.
Let's be clear here, very few contributors to Symbian ever really contributed anything. Instead, Nokia went at it substantially alone and achieved some pretty impressive penetration. It's open now, but I really doubt it will ever gain traction outside of Nokia devices and I sincerely doubt any other vendors will ever make another Symbian device. Meanwhile, Nokia continues to improve Symbian for its own purposes.
Google, on the other hand, doesn't make money selling devices, they make money selling advertising and they expect that at some point they will be able to monetize Android. They are not competitors with SE, Motorola, etc., they are partners. As such they have a vested interest in delivering a platform that's as strong as possible to their partners so that it becomes as widely dispersed as possible. Of course, some time down the road, Google's partners are going to end up in a situation where Google's making all the money and they're doing nothing other than slim-margin beige-box hardware - that's a bad place to be.
Interestingly, most of Google's vendor partners know this so they go to great lengths to put customizations into their software. They are effectively contributing their resources to benefit someone else's (Google's) bottom line at their own cost. All they'll ever make are device profits.
There is no free lunch. Nokia refused to provide it, and although it seems like Google has decided to, in fact they don't either.
In the meantime, though, their primary business is making money by selling devices. It's likely that this will always be, at least substantially, the case. This is the case for SE, Motorola, Samsung, LG, etc. too, and as such they are direct competitors. If Nokia gave its competitors a store and maps and all that stuff for nothing, they'd be spending a ton of money to bolster the competition's position at great cost to themselves.
Proliferating the platform for everyone's benefit at your own cost is crazy. That's why Nokia bought out the part of Symbian that they didn't own and made it their own.
Let's be clear here, very few contributors to Symbian ever really contributed anything. Instead, Nokia went at it substantially alone and achieved some pretty impressive penetration. It's open now, but I really doubt it will ever gain traction outside of Nokia devices and I sincerely doubt any other vendors will ever make another Symbian device. Meanwhile, Nokia continues to improve Symbian for its own purposes.
Google, on the other hand, doesn't make money selling devices, they make money selling advertising and they expect that at some point they will be able to monetize Android. They are not competitors with SE, Motorola, etc., they are partners. As such they have a vested interest in delivering a platform that's as strong as possible to their partners so that it becomes as widely dispersed as possible. Of course, some time down the road, Google's partners are going to end up in a situation where Google's making all the money and they're doing nothing other than slim-margin beige-box hardware - that's a bad place to be.
Interestingly, most of Google's vendor partners know this so they go to great lengths to put customizations into their software. They are effectively contributing their resources to benefit someone else's (Google's) bottom line at their own cost. All they'll ever make are device profits.
There is no free lunch. Nokia refused to provide it, and although it seems like Google has decided to, in fact they don't either.
Beachgirly927
New member
good points. afterall these companies ARE device manufacturers, so all their revenue SHOULD be coming from selling hardware devices. if nokia wants to get into services to make more money, then fine, and they've been pushing towards that for a couple years now. but motorola, HTC, and all these others using android OS, shouldnt they be happy enough selling as many devices as they can!? since when does everything have to be a service. i'd say android provides all necessary services, and the device guys be happy selling as many devices as they can, and compete making the best kick *** hardware possible. otherwise, they are in the wrong business and should move over to software or internet company or whatever!
Rainy Rose
New member
Thank you *very* much for this post. I couldn't word it properly, and would have just attacking Drillbit like I normally do. Thank you.
very good post...
these ideas have been hit upon before by few bloggers, forum members, and industry heads...
as we witness more of Androids dominance we see how the hardware manufactures being left with only scraps for profits....
I think it was the CEO of Symbian, Mr. Williams?, who said that with Apple you knew the closed proprietary bs you'd have to deal with
but Google was the entity that everyone needed to watch out for because they were creating a closed eco-system that benefits them primarily
and does not leave much for its partners...
I still think Samsung and SE are waiting out for Symbian^4 to arrive...
let Nokia deal w/ the transition between the operating systems...
these ideas have been hit upon before by few bloggers, forum members, and industry heads...
as we witness more of Androids dominance we see how the hardware manufactures being left with only scraps for profits....
I think it was the CEO of Symbian, Mr. Williams?, who said that with Apple you knew the closed proprietary bs you'd have to deal with
but Google was the entity that everyone needed to watch out for because they were creating a closed eco-system that benefits them primarily
and does not leave much for its partners...
I still think Samsung and SE are waiting out for Symbian^4 to arrive...
let Nokia deal w/ the transition between the operating systems...
It doesn't change the fact that what Nokia did---made exclusive services on it own phones, is just plain WRONG
Put it simply. You cannot be both platfom vendor and platform caretaker at the same time, then market that platform as open. That's why Google pulled the Nexus One out. That's why Microsoft isn't even considering making one.
If you want to be platform caretaker, you have to be magnanimous and provide all these services to the other vendors as well. You have to take th attitude that what's good for the platform is inevitably good for your brand.
Nokia hasn't. Symbian is literally dead as an open platform in the eyes of every other handset manufacturer in the world. Samsung, and now Sony Ericsson.
Really, what's the point of even buying up Symbian and putting in a Foundation when there's NO ONE now, except for Fujitsu, with its own totally independent fork, that would use it.
If you want the model for Blackberry and Apple, you should go for it, but don't even pretend that it's open.
All the pretentiousness asides, and it does not matter what you fanboys think. Symbian is not something any handset maker would adopt now. Period. That's the industry talk. Literally, its only Nokia who has to carry that flag alone. That's the bottom line.
I see the mumblings of the last few faithful Symbian developers from their tweets. Its a gamble. This fails, they're gone.
Put it simply. You cannot be both platfom vendor and platform caretaker at the same time, then market that platform as open. That's why Google pulled the Nexus One out. That's why Microsoft isn't even considering making one.
If you want to be platform caretaker, you have to be magnanimous and provide all these services to the other vendors as well. You have to take th attitude that what's good for the platform is inevitably good for your brand.
Nokia hasn't. Symbian is literally dead as an open platform in the eyes of every other handset manufacturer in the world. Samsung, and now Sony Ericsson.
Really, what's the point of even buying up Symbian and putting in a Foundation when there's NO ONE now, except for Fujitsu, with its own totally independent fork, that would use it.
If you want the model for Blackberry and Apple, you should go for it, but don't even pretend that it's open.
All the pretentiousness asides, and it does not matter what you fanboys think. Symbian is not something any handset maker would adopt now. Period. That's the industry talk. Literally, its only Nokia who has to carry that flag alone. That's the bottom line.
I see the mumblings of the last few faithful Symbian developers from their tweets. Its a gamble. This fails, they're gone.
Ya Favorite Barber!!!
New member
Scraps for profits? I really wonder if Lee Williams are looking at the numbers lately.
HTC used to eke out a measly 2 to 3 million smartphones a quarter. Now its over 6 million the last quarter and analysts are projecting 7 to 8 this quarter and a possible 9 to 10 million the next.
Samsung was lucky to eke out 6 million for the entire year of 2009 for all models. Now, they have shipped and sold one type, the Galaxy S 3 million in 3 months. They moved the Wave over a million in Asia and another million in Europe.
If they're scrapping for profits, they're laughing all the way to the bank doing so.
Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk
HTC used to eke out a measly 2 to 3 million smartphones a quarter. Now its over 6 million the last quarter and analysts are projecting 7 to 8 this quarter and a possible 9 to 10 million the next.
Samsung was lucky to eke out 6 million for the entire year of 2009 for all models. Now, they have shipped and sold one type, the Galaxy S 3 million in 3 months. They moved the Wave over a million in Asia and another million in Europe.
If they're scrapping for profits, they're laughing all the way to the bank doing so.
Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk
pinksparkles4
New member
Meh... Big deal then they will just learn to write for MeeGo or the other Major 2.
Who knows if Symbian will survive at or above mid-range after the N8/E7, but if MeeGo delivers in 2011 will anyone (especially around here) really care about Symbian anymore anyway?...
Who knows if Symbian will survive at or above mid-range after the N8/E7, but if MeeGo delivers in 2011 will anyone (especially around here) really care about Symbian anymore anyway?...
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.4; Series60/5.0 NokiaN97-3/22.2.110; Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1) AppleWebKit/525 (KHTML, like Gecko) BrowserNG/7.1.4)
always need a back up device....
Symbian forum will still be alive n kicking....
Even when we're fiending over Android and Meego....
always need a back up device....
Symbian forum will still be alive n kicking....
Even when we're fiending over Android and Meego....