03-04-2002, 10:13 AM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,177
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The Symbian Dilemma - no product, no share, no developer
http://www.cbronline.com/cbr.nsf/latestnews/5E538263357B291480256B6F00160285?OpenDocument
A couple of days after my "Innovate or get hit in the head" post, we get showered with Pocket PC Phone Editions, Smartphone 2002s, new partnerships and so on. It might look like it was a bit too well orchestrated, but I really had no idea what Microsoft had lined up for GSM World. Since CeBIT is just a couple of days away, I won't come up with anymore "Andy's List of Things"...
However, let's take a look at Symbian. What's up with those companies? They've got this operating system laying around and no one is using it!? Two years ago I attended a wireless developer conference and listened to a Symbian presentation. They showed really jazzy Powerpoint slides of reference designs and developer tools to come. What have we got today, two years after? Answer: really jazza Powerpoint slides of reference designs, developer tools to come, one Ericsson implementation (that even their Technical Lead is embarrassed of), and one Nokia implementation that is as sexy as a three year old Handheld PC.
Today's issue of "Computer Sweden" is dominated by the cover story "Mobile Giants fear Microsoft". The article's analysis is that Ericsson and Nokia don't have any plans of letting Microsoft in. Mats Thoren, Information Manager at Ericsson, says: "Our goal is to make Symbian the dominating operating system in mobile phones."
Mats finnish colleuage at Nokia Mobile Phones, Pekka Isomomppi, continues: "Symbian is the best option, since it is built on open standards".
Gartner analyst Ben Wood concludes: "At the moment there's nothing that indicates that Nokia or Ericsson would let Microsoft's software in their phones. They keep a tight grip on Symbian. The fear is that Microsoft will grab the whole hand, if you give them the little finger. There is a chance, however, that many new products will be announces at CeBIT and give the market a whole new face".
Microsoft Product Manager, Magnus Ahlberg, is quoted a number of times in the article. His major points are:
"PDAs and mobile phones play a significant role in our .NET strategy"
"Microsoft's ambition is to get a large part of the smartphone market"
"Microsoft wants to make it really easy for new players to establish themselves on the market"
"Microsoft wants to partner with Nokia and Ericsson, but we realize that that is not likely for the time being. They are both good at making hardware, while we are good at making software."
"Microsoft has the developers on our side"
"The Microsoft Smartphone 2002 built by Compal is 33% lighter and has more features than Nokia 7650."
I just read the article "Symbian in Danger of Alienating ISVs Says AvantGo" at the Computer Business Review Online that takes this analysis a bit further. (Note! You need to register at their site to read the article. Registration is free.)
Go and read the article and take a look at the Symbian Dilemma: no product, no share, no developer.
Some quotes:
"Mobile operating system vendor Symbian Ltd is in danger of losing the support of wireless business application developers unless its supporters can bring compelling devices to market as soon as possible."
"Richard Owen, CEO of Hayward, California-based wireless software vendor AvantGo Inc said his company has ports of its supply chain, sales force automation and field force automation packages for the London, UK-based company's operating system "pretty much ready to go". However, changing market factors mean that they might never be launched commercially."
"Owen pointed to the failure of Symbian's partners to capitalize on the Psion spin-off's early lead in the race to develop high-end operating systems for mobile devices for his company's reticence to bring compatible products to market. To date only Nokia Oyj's 9210 Communicator and LM Ericsson Telefon AB's R380 models have hit the high street."
"This has given chief rival Microsoft Corp the chance to fill the breach with its own PDA and smart phone offerings. And with the recent launch of Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition, Microsoft's first real foray into Symbian's territory of truly converged phone/PDA operating systems, Symbian's advantage seems to have been all but eroded."
"I have no idea why there are no devices. I thought they were further along last year than they are now. [The decision of Symbian shareholders Motorola and Psion to cancel their jointly developed Odin device last year] took a huge amount of wind out of their sails," said Owen."
"He said he believes Symbian's best chance of re-establishing itself now rests with how quickly and successfully Symbian shareholder Nokia can bring compelling devices using the platform to market."
"It's Nokia versus Microsoft now and Symbian is the squash racquet," said Owen. [The other Symbian shareholders] will be looking to Nokia for prodcuts and services. If Nokia brings out a compelling product then Motorola and the rest may follow."
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03-04-2002, 11:57 AM
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Pupil
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 13
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Some time ago we where thinking of porting some of our software (our expense tracker to be precise) to Symbian. We finally opted against it mainly for two reasons:
1. Programming for this OS is no picnic, it involves an extremly steep learning curve. This thing (which adheres to a very rigid object oriented paradigma) is different from virtually anything I've seen before, the effect being that practically none of our code was reusable.
2. While the PSION devices had a decent market share in Europe (at least at the time we were looking at it) they were literally non existant outside Europe, limiting the potential audience for our products significantly.
Funny enough, couple of weeks after we decided against Symbian, they announced pulling out of the PDA market.
- Inigo
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03-04-2002, 12:02 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 5
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Hello
Before I start, I explain below why I'm 'new_chubbergott'... but I want to say my bit;
So, back to the farm...... I think there's a lot of Blairite spin going down here because you got to remember that Symbian, while only having two smartphone on the market at the moment, do have two smartphone on the market.
Look at them. They are very different devices. They are so completely different you wouldn't have thought that they were both of the same OS. Is that a bad thing? Look at it from the phone manufacturers point of view... the manufactrer can do what they want with the OS to make it look as they like. Adds to the time it takes to get a device out there, but it also adds to the quality and allows the manufacturer to maintain an identity.
So, no devices? That is a lie. There are two out and another coming very soon. How many Micro$oft smartphones are on the market for me to go out and buy today?
No share? I don't think so. I think you'll find that Nokia's share in the mobile market is anything but small. Symbian's share in the smartphone market? Well, it's bigger than zero and that's how many Micro$oft smartphone are out there at the moment (but I believe it is foolish and shallow to think that share is a direct indicator of quality - think about it).
No developers? I giggle.... and sigh. There are developers. Maybe not the two-a-penny that Micro$oft enjoys, but they are there and they produce very high quality software (either that or Symbian have managed to write an installer for vapourware).... and if you avoid Symbian becaus it's too hard to program for it, you're probably better off with Visual Basic and leave Symbian for proper developers who understand proper object modelling.
Finally, Symbian is (IMO) a far superior OS (no so many levels) but, as has been made very slear, if Nokia don't run with the ball, they're gonna get tackled and turned over.
the boring bit
I'm registered as 'new_chubbergott' because 'chubbergott' has been locked out. This always seems to happen when a new burst of 'Micro$oft rulez and all else sucks' starts. Its probably an accident, but I did try resetting my password and all I got were error messages saying that I don't exist in the database. Hmmmmmmm, am I being shut up?
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03-04-2002, 12:58 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 24
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This is a very interesting article, but it is from a Microsoft standpoint. Thats not by itself a bad thing, but I think people should relaise that this is a very pro-Microsft line to take.
As Cubbergot points out above Symbian actually have 2 smartphones on the market (and 3 if you include the Ericsson or Nokia 765). This isn't something that MS can really lay a claim on. Also there's a very key line in the article...
There is a chance, however, that many new products will be announces at CeBIT and give the market a whole new face
The point is that the market and any analysis can chnage very quickly. It is quite possible that SonyEricsson and Motorola could both annouce their Symbian devices at CeBIT (they're both in development at the moment 2 from Ericsson and 1 from Motorola). Nokia are also working ona camera free 7650 this too may be announced at CeBIT. They've also promised more Symbian phones. That could leave us with up to 4 news Symbian phones announced - that would of course put a completely different spin on things.
I also liked these quites from a Microsoft employee (I'm sure he'll be non biased!)
"Microsoft has the developers on our side"
Emmm - well maybe for the desktop, but to claim that when there a large Symbian smartphone developer pool (500,000) I believe is slightly reidiculous. Anyone claiming this needs to be carefully considered.
"The Microsoft Smartphone 2002 built by Compal is 33% lighter and has more features than Nokia 7650."
But it doesn't include a camera and with MMS likely to be a big selling point...
Gartner analyst Ben Wood concludes: "At the moment there's nothing that indicates that Nokia or Ericsson would let Microsoft's software in their phones. They keep a tight grip on Symbian. The fear is that Microsoft will grab the whole hand, if you give them the little finger. There is a chance, however, that many new products will be announces at CeBIT and give the market a whole new face".
- isn't that change in tune from when this site (erroneously) reported Ericsson was decamping to MS?
Anyway the whole thing was interesting if hopelessly MS biased. Not that, that is bad in itself - it just can give the wrong impression. But then this is a PPC site - so I suppose it fair - I just like balance in my journalism..
Rafe
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03-04-2002, 12:59 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 13
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>> you're probably better off with Visual Basic and leave Symbian for
>> proper developers who understand proper object modelling.
There's no need for flames. We write in C++ here and had no trouble porting to Linux or Palm OS. While Symbian may have its merits in regard to stability or other aspects, as a developer who wants to sell his products I have to look at the whole "infrastructure" of an OS. And that includes ease of portability, code reuse, market share etc.
- Inigo
http://www.xircuit.com
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03-04-2002, 01:14 PM
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Pontificator
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 1,177
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The headline should be read: "If you don't ship products, you end up with no market share and no developers". The same is true for Microsoft, and every company in virtually any market.
The Symbian Dilemma shouldn't be shrugged off. Two tired mobile phone models isn't really a good track record given the time frame; two years. Will Microsoft have more than two mobile phone models out on the market in two years from now? You bet.
Developers that target the Smartphone 2002 platform have an incredible amount of skill leverage and reuse potential. From an enterprise point-of-view, these are critical aspects.
I also want to challenge the "open standards" myth the Symbian spokespersons nurtures. What are the most important standards to support in a mobile Internet world?
The answer needs to be divided into two categories:
1. Content: TCP-IP, HTTP, HTML, XML, SOAP, WML, WAP, GIF, JPG, WAV.
2. Program execution. "Open" is not the most relevant keyword. "Standard" is. There are two "standards" out there today: Java and DNA/.NET.
So, the Microsoft initiatives in this market do support the Internet content standards (probably better than anyone else), and provide support for one of two de facto development standards.
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03-04-2002, 04:58 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 5
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by I. Bergman
>> you're probably better off with Visual Basic and leave Symbian for
>> proper developers who understand proper object modelling.
There's no need for flames. We write in C++ here and had no trouble porting to Linux or Palm OS. While Symbian may have its merits in regard to stability or other aspects, as a developer who wants to sell his products I have to look at the whole "infrastructure" of an OS. And that includes ease of portability, code reuse, market share etc.
- Inigo
http://www.xircuit.com
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 ops: Apologoes. No flame intended.
I'm not a Symbian developer and I wasn't looking down on you - I just thought that while your point about demand was valid, I didn't think that the point about Symbian being too hard was very good since there are lots of people out there who produce prefectly excellent software for the platform.
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03-04-2002, 06:39 PM
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Executive Editor
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 29,160
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Hello
Quote:
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Originally Posted by new_chubbergott
I'm registered as 'new_chubbergott' because 'chubbergott' has been locked out. This always seems to happen when a new burst of 'Micro$oft rulez and all else sucks' starts. Its probably an accident, but I did try resetting my password and all I got were error messages saying that I don't exist in the database. Hmmmmmmm, am I being shut up?
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No, you're not being shut out. If you can point me towards an instance where we kill accounts based on anti-Microsoft rants, I'll gladly look into it....but that's never happened, and never will. The only time I've ever killed accounts on this board is when one guy kept registering with names like "jasonisatool" and "edisafag" - he wasn't here to contribute, he was here to insult people.
I've looked at your account and it's fully active - I've reset the active status in the database, so try logging in again. If you still have problems, email me and I'll help you - even though I dislike what you're doing to this discussion board. :evil:
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03-04-2002, 07:29 PM
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Ponderer
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 110
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Symbian - No Share, No Product, No Developers
As a user of both an iPaq AND a 9210 I just HAD to respond to this! First point - ok I am a bit of a gadget freak - but I don't really want to have to use (keep synchronised etc) both devices. So why do I? Because neither fully covers my needs. The 9210 itself is brilliant - the Symbian OS is a million miles better than the previous OS on the 9110. The user experience of getting phone/fax/email/etc all in one device with a "reasonable" keyboard and a wide format screen is very good - OK this is 100% a question of how you work/what you like - but it's good for me. Plus there are lots of apps, and developers porting from the Psions themselves. Just one example - a French outfit called Kylom have as good example of a "rich client" app (Currency Converter called Monaie) as you could ask for. In short a good combination of mature hardware (9210 is generation three) and OS (including the Psion predecessors).
BUT - and it's a huge caveat - the PC synchronisation is utterly appaling. Check out any 9210 site and you're bound to see what I mean!!!!! The best you ever get is "sync on connect" - on mine I think it's called "sync on connect - if you're very lucky and the wind is blowing in the right direction and you said your mantras in the right order and the Gods are smiling and - oh yes - you haven't been stupid enough to think you can sync for a second time without rebooting your PC". In theory you can sync email - I gave up as my emails arrive about 100 times faster than they get onto the 9210 and as the sync software changes the date (ON THE PC!) of any email that has an attachment!!!! I could go on.... The point being I just love ActiveSync every time I try to sync my 9210. Yeah I know it's far from perfect but - funnilly enough - MSoft seem to be able to make sync-ing with Windows work better than Symbian - I wonder why that is exactly!!!!
So - in short - they've actually got good product, good share (at the moment at least) and some really good developers - their true Achilles Heel is the sync software. For me, at least, Nokia/Symbian have until somebody comes up with a good hardware "package" that gives me all-in-one phone/fax/email (preferably in a format like the 9210) running Pocket PC - if they haven't sorted the sync-ing out by then it'll be "goodbye from me" - that's their real vulnerability.
ps I guess I really want a 9210 running PPC - but it looks like I'll need to find an alternative universe for that one! Don't you just love it when politics beats customer satisfaction? In the meantime the XDA looks promising but I've not been convinced by Sagem/Trium/Siemens.
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03-04-2002, 07:50 PM
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Neophyte
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 5
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Hello
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Jason Dunn
If you still have problems, email me and I'll help you - even though I dislike what you're doing to this discussion board. :evil:
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:cry: Ouch! That really hurt!
:x But I'd be even more offended if I thought you were suggesting I was the one who created those usernames!
Nevertheless, thank you for your help and goodwill in helping fix the problem. I know we disagree on mobile technology, but there are more important issues on which I am certain you and I agree.
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