I don't think you'reuptodate. smartphone is a much bigger market (see the figures) and ms wants in.
Obviously not. (ops: - but not much). I lost faith in Symbian as a device provider some time ago and have drifted away from keeping up to date with information. Although a long time fan (I lusted after the Organiser II even if I couldn't afford one at the time). How is the current version of EPOC Connect BTW?
Whether Symbian does win the smartphone market is still I believe anybody guess. I have stated on these boards before that by not getting the big players on board MS are not just simply playing catch up, but are in trouble as far as user acceptance is concerned. I have been naysayed in that as according to many people on these boards the American market operates far more on a network availibility rather than the handset manufacturer - the reverse of at least the UK market (and I believe much of Europe).
Symbian undeniably should be so far in front it shouldn't be worthwhile MS starting the race (like that ever stopped them) but the paucity of Symbian devices makes this simply not true. We currently have two EPOC devices available (i'll exclude the r380 though I presume it is no longer sold). So for the two lead time that Symbian has had we have a device per year.
The P800 will be interesting when it does finally arrive - i'm not sure what I have read will make it a Palm killer however - I think Palm will be killed by Smarphones generally at the bottom end and the PPC at the top. I do have worries about the physical design (particularly the keypad flip - after the R380) and the delays. I do however hope it is a success any failure at this stage will send the OEM's running for the hills.
But, they have not kept people in Europe from buying Nokia Symbians. If Symbian could only make enough money off of these to get Quartz back up and running.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dochall
TBH at the moment it is a totally bogus comparison. None of the Symbian OEMs have managed to actually produce a PDA worth discussing as yet. The closest has been the 9210 but you don't see them flying of shelves.
The 7650 is selling well, has near the function of the SmartPhone, and if memory serves me, a camera.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dochall
It too early to draw any real conclusions with regard to the Symbian/MS debate apart from the obvious that Symbian is kicking ass due to the lead time.
I wonder how much better they would have done if people weren't waiting for Sendo for a year.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dochall
This is due to their OEM's and has very little to do with the fact their running EPOC.
And if the first version of SmartPhone is as bad as the first version of most Microsoft products, Symbian will have another year and those who waited and bought buggy OS SmartPhones will go back and buy Ericsons.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dochall
The Symbian coalition has been together for at least of a couple of years and we have seen the 9210, the 7650 and the vaporware P800. If MS can really get a good market share for smartphones it may well be as much to do with Symbian's OEMs inablity to get product to market as much as anything to do with what MS does.
The Sendo is a year late and you call the P800 Vaporware?
Quote:
Originally Posted by dochall
Timothy - Symbian's money has got little to do with the lack of quartz devices. More correctly Psion's money has something to do with it, however the model that they were producing with Motorola, 'ODIN' was a pearl smartphone not a quartz device.
It might be a technically incorrect to mix Symbian's money and Psions, but the defacto result in the real world is the same. Psion wrote EPOC which is the basis for Symbian. They dont own Symbian nor does Symbian own them but their fortunes are as tied together in the real world as they could possibly be. That is why there is not Quartz. Psion could not write Symbian OS in three versions (phone--pearl, PDA---quartz, and clamshell palmtop---?--) while Microsoft was hiring away all of their programmers and they were running out of cash. So, they banked it all on the phone version.
The smartphone is a much bigger market (see the figures) and ms wants in.
You seem ahead of me in this area. Mind telling me of a site that could get me up to date? I really, really, REALLY wanted a Quartz. If P800 offers that kind of functionality, I would love to know it. In the US we are not as big on the Symbian/Ericson/Nokia/Sony etc. phone plans.
You are right about Microsoft wanting into the phone market. A friend says that his wife invest all her money in the stock of companies that make a few very profitable products. He puts his money in companies that make tiny profits on many millions of items. The contrast fits where Microsoft is going with phones while Palm is going to try to sell Tungsten PDAs for 650 Euros list.
Honestly, I think the numbers produced and quoted by Canalys are pure crap. It is an apples-to-oranges comparison, and is completely misleading and poorly explained. I understand the difficulty in trying to describe the marketplace when it is populated with such converged devices, but stating the numbers in terms of market share -- when they are all participating in different markets -- is statistical game-playing.
Now, before everybody jumps on me for saying this, just let me state that I do know a few things about sampling, statistical analysis and reporting; I've been doing it for 13+ years.
In fact, my two favorite quotes about my profession are:
"Statistics don't lie. Statisticians do."
"There are liars. There are damn liars. And there are statisticians."
The 7650 is selling well, has near the function of the SmartPhone, and if memory serves me, a camera.
The original point was that we the figures show a comparison which is bogus. It like comparing the scores of an archery competion where one competitor turned with only arrows and the other with only a bow. Until MS and Symbian, or more accurately their OEMs are providing both a smartphone and PDA offering we aren't really doing a like with like comparison. The fact that the 7650 isn't a smartphone only makes the comparison more bogus.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Timothy Rapson
I wonder how much better they would have done if people weren't waiting for Sendo for a year.
Tough one to call. I think Sendo have a hard furrow to plough due to their lack of brand recognition. I don't know how well their current phone is selling. That said the XDA seems to have been a reasonable success and hanging the Windows Logo onto it has a great deal to do with that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Timothy Rapson
And if the first version of SmartPhone is as bad as the first version of most Microsoft products, Symbian will have another year and those who waited and bought buggy OS SmartPhones will go back and buy Ericsons.
We can but wait and see what the quality of the OS is like when it get's out into the wild. It will certainly be a CSF but then I would have bet my life on EPOC stability but I understand that one of the reasons for the delay on the P800 is due to stablility issues.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Timothy Rapson
The Sendo is a year late and you call the P800 Vaporware?
Well it is. So is the Sendo but that doesn't distract from the fact that I can't pop out to Carphone Warehouse and buy a P800. Don't dream that I am huge fan of the MS smartphone OS or any other smartphone OS for that matter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Timothy Rapson
It might be a technically incorrect to mix Symbian's money and Psions, but the defacto result in the real world is the same. Psion wrote EPOC which is the basis for Symbian. They dont own Symbian nor does Symbian own them but their fortunes are as tied together in the real world as they could possibly be. That is why there is not Quartz. Psion could not write Symbian OS in three versions (phone--pearl, PDA---quartz, and clamshell palmtop---?--) while Microsoft was hiring away all of their programmers and they were running out of cash. So, they banked it all on the phone version.
I agree that the Psion and Symbian fortunes are closely tied together. Psion bet the house on Symbian. This was the result of many factors not least of which is that Psion sat on the Series 5 while everyone around them was crying out for a colour screen. They sat at the top of a high tower proclaiming about battery life while the people buying devices were seduced by colour and accepting that an reasonable model for powering a PDA was closer to the mobile phone model - not many people want to canoe the Amazon on one set of AAs.
The clamshell was a Crystal BTW.
MS hiring away Symbian's programmers (not something I was aware of) does potentially provide some about the stabiliity of the MS smartphone OS though.
TBH I don't really give a damn about who wins the smartphone market. Personally I'm far more of a small phone and BT combined with a PDA. I want a larger screen not a smaller one. In MS land I may be converted to the PPC Phone edition but the current offering just isn't upto the mark as far as spec is concerned and in Symbian land it looks like my lusting after the original Quartz design by Ericsson was even more of waste of time than lusting after something that is going to eventually exist.
You seem ahead of me in this area. Mind telling me of a site that could get me up to date? I really, really, REALLY wanted a Quartz. If P800 offers that kind of functionality, I would love to know it. In the US we are not as big on the Symbian/Ericson/Nokia/Sony etc. phone plans.
Quartz has been replaced by UIQ (see the Symbian website for more details on this). There are UIQ devices coming from Motorola and maybe other.
With regard to the P800 being vapourware - thats a little unfair. I think it going to be about 3 months late. Not really the same scale of lateness as the Sendo. Also you can actually see the P800 in some stores as demo units. The P800 is the most complicated and advance smartphone ever, and SE have said they are committed to get all the bugs before launch. I've spoken to people who have used it and they said it will really makes waves.
I don't really think you can say the figures are false either, they are true, but the reflect two different categories of device, the thing is though that they are possibly(!) merging.
Someone asked about EpocConnect. Its much better than it was, and with the 7650 sync over bluetooth things are much more advanced than in the MS smartphone camp. That and Symbian being a major SyncML player is what will start to tell soon.
With regards to devices, true there aren;t that many Symbian devices avaiablel atm: 9210, 9290, 9210, 7650, and 3650, P800 on way. But recently Symbain's Bancroft said we could expect 14 phones from 8 companies... I persoanlly know of at least 4 devices that are due out with the next 2-3 months. If that comes to fruition well - lets just say it'll be interesting.
With regards to devices, true there aren;t that many Symbian devices avaiablel atm: 9210, 9290, 9210, 7650
I'm not trying to start a war, honest guv but I don't think counting the 9210 twice and counting the same machine on a different band (9290) is quite correct.
So that leaves the 92x0 and the 7650: that will be 2 then. :P
I would be very interested in the new Symbian devices however.
What a sensible, impertable bunch of posters this thread has attracted. It looks like, for all the announcements of this week, the real story on smartphones is 6 months away.
What a sensible, impertable bunch of posters this thread has attracted. It looks like, for all the announcements of this week, the real story on smartphones is 6 months away.
ops: - but not much). I lost faith in Symbian as a device provider some time ago and have drifted away from keeping up to date with information. Although a long time fan (I lusted after the Organiser II even if I couldn't afford one at the time). How is the current version of EPOC Connect BTW?
but I don't think counting the 9210 twice and counting the same machine on a different band (9290) is quite correct.
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