+ Why is Symbian virtually absent in the United States?

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Xx_Lonely_xX

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i disagree that symbian are more expensive compared to WM... features by features both are on the same price level on the smartphone side, but if you look at the PPC phones, then those are more expensive compared to S60 devices... UIQ (SE) and PPC phones are pretty much at the same cost with UIQ being a little lower...


anyways, i believe regionalization plays an important factor...

you will see a lot of lincoln, cheavy and cadillac in NY, but less of BMW, M-B, Land Rover, Renault, Peugeot... subsequently, you wont see a lot of american cars in london, berlin, paris, milan, but you will certainly see a lot of BMW, M-B, Renault, Peugeot, etc...

same way, symbian is EU, Win and Palm is US, and the rest of the world is Nokia, thats why S60 rules the world!!!
 
Symbian: Worldwide dominance, U.S. absence?



Here's a nice article I've just found over the "MacWorld". As you may have already know, Symbian OS isn?t as popular in US as in rest of the world and Jeff Carlson and Glenn Fleishman looking for the answer Why is Symbian virtually absent in the United States?

Their stand point is quite interesting, very reliable and definitely has some very valid points indeed and therefore it definitely worth reading.

Anyway from my stand point its hard to believe that CMDA still dominates in USA whiles the UMTS bec.. ..

Read more:
Why is Symbian virtually absent in the United States - full story
www.symbian-freak.com - Your Ultimate Symbian Destination



Sincerely yours,
Apoc
 
Here is my take.

1) Symbian OS is incredible! Back with the Psion 5x - Word/Excel editing was already there when the Palm III couldnt even do colour (3c was the first colour unit). As a feature set phone its incredible. However familiarity is KING in any computing market (Need I say M$ is the cash cow?)

2) I agree with what someone said about the North American marketing department blows! That team should be fired. Nokia has made incredible products - wide range to a fault. There are few that support quad-band which HTC WM products offer, along with wide range of WiFi that Symbian OS based phones do not (UIQ3 & S60).

3) Palm had a huge hold on the PDA market but got greedy. THey wanted to force intellictual property that other manufacturers' used (SONY & the virtual graphiti area anyone?) and implemented in the ever incremental OS 5. This caused the biggest licensor to bail SONY! Since then the Palm OS has gone downhill, as M$ didnt screw their manufacturers; they embraced them. Same is now happening with HTC > their making devices that the market wants with features.

4) SE made great news which may help Symbians adoption in the US & Canada. UIQ is also Symbian based which many here know of but forget to mention. It also has the ability of 1-Handed operation for its UI but hasnt been seen yet (UIQ3 only supports this). Sure Nokia has a controlling stake with shares in Symbian OS > however SE has got some plans for the future using the UIQ3 implementation. We should consider ourselves lucky that Sony or SE hasnt made a WM5 Smartphone/PPC-PE device yet - their incredible with implementation (P990 is nice but somebody at SE thought low RAM was a good choice).

What # am I on now? Oh yeah...

5) Usuage cost! Up until now, GPRS was the main medium (CDMA group limited functionality of phones pulling out WiFi from WM5/3 PPC-PE devices) for data transport. Now that we have EDGE (uptake way too slow) & UMTS along with unlimited and unrestricted data maximum usuage/mth > ppl can now fully enjoy what their smartphone is capable of. (however if you have a monopoly of data medium & nationwide coverage & are greedy = Rogers Wireless then you wont see much more than 7% Mobile data usuage nationwide an increase of 1% from 2004 - mid 2006).

Data Coverage & unlimited pkg for its usuage allows for those so bold to purchase and fully use/enjoy their mobile data.

Nokia wake up and smell the wireless waves. Partnering for a carrier who spends 4 months to approve after testing a mobile of yours to release when the BJ (an WM5 device) get approved in half the time - and getting full support for a whole suit of mobile media > then its time to release the device toute suite on your OWN! N75 (maybe too late to appreciate mass sales). Furthermore stop ignoring us > release more quad band phones feature packed.

American's arent cheap, not anymore than Canadians are (states show they spent more money as a whole this December than ALL Canadians - CNN Headline News baby) however I agree that their not going to spend $600US on a smartphone when a sub $400US unit does the same thing with more styling. Plus as a general concensus most still think camera's on phones are a gimmick (interpretation of those units then from what they've experienced).

Basically its up to those of use pro/power users to use our devices, flaunt them off > inform those that are spying our units (lol some humor) and show them what they can do.

Programmers have a heart make MORE APPS.
 
@Apoc:

Not to nitpick, but man grammar! It's CDMA not CMDA, and standpoint is one word

Anyway, I'd say that the reason that Symbian isn't as big of deal here is twofold (having not read the article yet, just my own opinion):

1.) Smartphones are only recently starting to take off in the American market. We are behind the times in just about every way when it comes to Cellular, and data is no exception. Data, and access to the internet, is what drives Smartphone sales, so only now with EDGE and UMTS are we starting to see more widespread adoption.

2.) Microsoft dominates here like no other. Yes, they dominate everywhere, but in their home country this is particularly true. Because of that, MS Mobiles have much more cache as a brand then Symbian. The only real competition from a branding standpoint is Palm, which is why Treo's do so well. This is also because EPOC machines didn't do as well here as in Europe, so again, the trend continues.

-olly
 
Well, you gave more of an opinion than the article did, Olly. It was only a list of facts from the most part that didn't attempt to answer the question asked whatsoever.Instead, it just described in detail how much the United States is lacking on Symbian, and then went on to talk about Symbian's compatibility with Macs.
 
only an idiot would point out the fact that standpoint is 2 words. i dont even go back to spell check and i dont even think about hitting the Cap button. as long as i understand what the person is trying to say its fine. i will point something out if the grammar makes the sentence funny but never to try and correct someone.
 
Nokia and Qualcomm have had an antagonistic relationship for years over patent licensing in the U.S. The legal battles continue. I suspect that this has something to do with Nokia pulling out of the American CDMA market.

That, and the relationship between Nokia and VZW seemed pretty terrible over the years. I have no inside information but do notice that VZW didn't pick up many of the higher-end Nokia CDMA offerings. The story according to some folks on HF seemed to be that VZW objected to the lack of extendable antenna on these phones even though many of these Nokias with an internal antenna actually easily outperformed the LG phones with the extendable antenna and VZW was selling some other phones without extendable antennas. I had a non-VZW Nokia 6585 going on VZW for a long while. Not symbian, but IMO it was nicer than the other VZW offerings at the time.

I can imagine that VZW wanted the whole VZW UI, etc. on new Nokias. Doing this development work would have probably cost a fair bit. At some point the North American CDMA market probably just wasn't worth the trouble.

I would have loved to see a Symbian phone for VZW. There were apparently plans for a Nokia Symbian CDMA phone, but they never materialized. I need VZW for the sake of the plan that includes roaming in Canada. Can't seem to get that with any other carrier these days.

When I sit here and compare WM5, Symbian, PalmOS, and the Blackberry, I do think that the BB has an advantage on the UI front - the BB is so simple and quick, and almost always seems to anticipate what I really want to do.

PalmOS just doesn't seem to be getting the investment it needs to continue to be viable. It doesn't multitask well. I used a Treo 700p for a while this year, and the thing that got me in the end was how poorly it worked as a phone. The RF performance was just terrible compared to a Nokia 6236i or the BB 7250 or 8703e.

Symbian is pretty stable, the new S60v3 has some good web browser options. My only real criticism is that Nokia isn't putting enough memory into its new Symbian phones. In general, it is my preferred phone operating system.

WM5 is clunky and power hungry. The UI is clumsy. I'm trying out a Blackjack now, and other than the 3G connectivity, I don't really see the appeal. However, Microsoft is being clever as usual, and is beginning to take a slice out of the corporate messaging market from RIM. People who know about Exchange tell me that pushing Exchange mail to a WM5 phone takes a lot fewer resources on an Exchange server than pushing email to a BB. My technical expertise is on the UNIX/Linux end of things and I know little about Windows, but I trust the expertise of the people who are telling me this. The scary thing from RIM's point of view, is that history has demonstrated that people are willing to put up with difficult to use UIs and not very reliable operating systems from Microsoft, and that Microsoft can afford to give away the push email technology at no extra cost to gain market share. One of the primary ways Microsoft got exchange into large companies that used another platform for email was giving it away (for a couple of years at least). Short term cost savings make people look good.
 
Yeah I know, it was typo, you see sometimes my fingers are faster than the brain and after all English is my 2nd language so.. ..

I have already noticed and fixed CDMA and now I?m going to fix standpoint also, thx 4 the tip by the way.. . .


Strong point I have to agree but I'll not comment it as I have to be honest and say that I?m not an expert for US markets..


Have a nice and long holidays by the way, I whish this seasons bring you success, good times and happiness! Wish you have a very Happy New Year.

teo
 
I think this has a lot to do with how phones are purchased. In US it seems to be more operator led so to sell more phones you have do deals with them and the dynamics changes with the operators driving the type of phones and features, rather than the individual.

Nokia is good at designing and marketing to individuals, but when sellling through operators the high premiums on the Symbian phones are possibly something US operators are not too keen on taking on hence the drive towards less feature rich and cheaper phones. It would be interesting to see mobile phone sale figures for individuals in US rather than through operators. I think that will give us a better idea if these figures are available.
 
another point (i haven't read the article yet either) is that generaly, smartphones tend to cost more, and unless it's a sidekick, razr, or something else that's been on T.V., americans aren't willing to drop the $200-$600 required for a symbian phone. their are exceptions of course.
 
Most americans are scared of change. The average american will have to fit in a certain way of life to survive. most of us use windows comuters because windows is the forced on "standard" of OS for computers. Same goes for the Windows based OS for Phones. Symbian is the "corrected" OS for phones because its actually for phones..... not just a computer OS thats been stripped to the ligaments to just be crammed into a phone.... Because americans are afraid of change. Windows should never be in a phone. Americans are also stuck on ourselves as a whole. We think are product is ALWAYS better than the rest of the worlds even though it may be horrible.


There are american products that stand out better than other foriegn competors products. Americans should embrace symbian because of the ease of use and the almost unlimited possibilities of programs and functions. Another reason being that nokia is by far the most "pricey" of Mobile phone companies... And that symbian is carried almost soley by nokia... Is also hurting the market in the USA. People have to realize that Nokia has put out tried and true reliable products for over 10 years. But hey! We can always get a RAZR!!!!
 
You seem a "tad" bit biased there.

Windows Mobile (both Smartphone and PPC editions) is not even close to being as bad as your portray it. In fact for some people (due to their specific needs) it the best platform out there.
 
Wirelessly posted (HTC-2125/1.2 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows CE; Smartphone; 240x320) UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

I have to agree with the previous comment. I know this is a symbian forum, but try to be a little less of a fanboy, both s60 and WM have their pluses and minuses but neither is head and shoulders above the other from the perspective of an unbiased observer.

The key differences from my perspective are hardware, with nokia the leader in cameras and htc creating better world phones that have more ram
 
Wirelessly posted (Series 60: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Symbian OS; Nokia E61/0618.06.05; 9730) Opera 8.65 [en])



hahaha touche

-olly
 
Ya, SymbianBlack is dead on. Alot of it is just the level of comfort with certain technologies.

Smartphones, especially running Symbian, are not pushed here. If someone is looking for a smartphone, they feel more comfortable with something familiar like Windows Mobile or something.

The level that many American's are at is they want a phone with:
-Good reception
-A camera, if only to play with
-Good looks

Expandibility and customization is not important to most consumers. This will change over time, but it is part of the adaption process of any technology. We're a bit behind on the widespread deployment of new mobile technologies, which I think has as much to do with the size of the United States as anything else.

I'm getting my first Nokia smartphone (the N73 ME) on Jan 3rd though so you can add one more to the list!
 
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