Operators To Cut Number of Supported Operating Systems

[Jon Westfall]

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06...LC-TB2006-02-15

"Operators and handset makers are moving toward standardizing on just a few mobile phone operating systems. They're likely to choose relatively open platforms with large developer groups, according to experts at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona on Wednesday. ...operators want to try to standardize on just a few phone operating systems which would make it easier to offer consistent services across a wide range of devices. Vodafone (Profile, Products, Articles) Group currently supports handsets based on more than 15 different platforms, said Dirk Wierzbitzki, group director of terminals portfolio and services at Vodafone. Tweaking each application to work on each platform is expensive, and because the operator must work to the lowest common denominator, it's not offering the innovative services that it wants"

Hopefully if this materalizes, it will end one of the most frustrating things I knew when I was using a regular mobile phone: tech support was clueless how to perform basic functions on the OS my phone had. While I believe there will still be a lot of "step-reading" from a book, maybe support people will actually get more familiar with the ins and outs of an OS with less of them to support.

[Jon Westfall]

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06...LC-TB2006-02-15

"Operators and handset makers are moving toward standardizing on just a few mobile phone operating systems. They're likely to choose relatively open platforms with large developer groups, according to experts at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona on Wednesday. ...operators want to try to standardize on just a few phone operating systems which would make it easier to offer consistent services across a wide range of devices. Vodafone (Profile, Products, Articles) Group currently supports handsets based on more than 15 different platforms, said Dirk Wierzbitzki, group director of terminals portfolio and services at Vodafone. Tweaking each application to work on each platform is expensive, and because the operator must work to the lowest common denominator, it's not offering the innovative services that it wants"

Hopefully if this materalizes, it will end one of the most frustrating things I knew when I was using a regular mobile phone: tech support was clueless how to perform basic functions on the OS my phone had. While I believe there will still be a lot of "step-reading" from a book, maybe support people will actually get more familiar with the ins and outs of an OS with less of them to support.

[PDANEWBIE]

While I believe there will still be a lot of "step-reading" from a book, maybe support people will actually get more familiar with the ins and outs of an OS with less of them to support.

Even with less OS'es I bet your still going to have the same experiences. These call centers have awful turn around times and the people in there don't even know/own the product they are supporting 90% of the time. I did a brief stint in a call center 1 time (1 month) and I tell you this isn't a place I ever want to end up back in.

What you need to do is to ask they providers to beef up their support databases

[DaleReeck]

Yeah, clueless about many OS's to clueless about a few.

[ctitanic]

Originally Posted by Jon Westfall

"They're likely to choose relatively open platforms with large developer groups"

If they choose WM5 and then Application lock phones they are reducing the large developer group to about less than 2 ~ 3%. :evil: