Sendo Sets Date for Smart Phone Redux

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/2100-1033-984688.html?tag=fd_top' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/2100-1033-98468...html?tag=fd_top</a><br /><br /></div>Hmm, it's interesting sticking Sendo articles in the "competition" category. :)<br /><br />"U.K.-based cell phone maker Sendo is launching a line of "feature phone" handsets and is planning to release a new smart phone this fall, following the demise of its Microsoft-powered Z100 handset.<br /><br />In addition, the company says it plans to launch a smart phone developer program on Monday during the 3GSM Congress in Cannes, France, to boost the number of applications that will run on its smart phone handset when it arrives on the market."<br /><br />Check this juicy quote out:<br /><br />"Brogan said he 'could not be more happy' with Symbian's cooperation on the new smart phone handset. He said that Sendo has more freedom to customize its smart phone because features such as multimedia messaging service (MMS) and Java support are already standard on Symbian. "We don't have to bring it up to the standard operators expect; we start from there," Brogan said. Sendo had added MMS and Java support to Microsoft's Smartphone 2002 through its own efforts."

[heov]

so let me get this straight, ppcthoughts is now an endorser of microsoft smartphone? so is everything non-ms competition, or just CE based stuff? confused :?

anyway, is it going to be the same phone concept (z100)... that'd just be awesome... it seems as if smartphone2k2 is way behind the others in terms of prodcution... i guess sendo dumping ms really hurt the release of smartphones2k2

[Stik]

From the CNET article...

' Sendo has given away little about its new smart phone, other than that it will be based on the Symbian operating system and on Finnish cell phone company Nokia's Series 60 user interface. Series 60 is designed to be operated via the phone's keypad, rather than with a stylus.'

From a IT-DIRECTOR.COM article...

' A recent article in The Economist about the battle between Microsoft and Nokia for operating system supremacy on wireless instruments (Smartphones) concluded that Nokia with its Symbian OS based Series 60 SDK was already the victor over Microsoft's Smartphone 2002 SDK.'

Gas on the fire...

'Then there is the cost per device for Smartphone 2002 SDK. The royalty was reported to be about $5 per shipping device. If the Symbian partners were to ship a total of 400 million units per annum and just 10% of them were Smartphones, then $200 million in royalties would go to Microsoft. Clearly, it is cheaper to support the Symbian development only. The Symbian partners can also recapture costs from licensing the OS to those manufacturers who are not Symbian partners, and selling the SDK to independent developers. The figures don't make a decent proposition for Smartphone and Microsoft is thus a loser.'

http://www.it-director.com/article.php?id=3555

[GregWard]

One thing that's really noticeable about Symbian devices at the moment is how instantly "older" hardware is dropped.

If you look at 3rd Party devmnt's they are all - pretty much - 7650 (I guess we'll see more P600 soon). If you have a 9210 (like me :( ) then tough no more new software!

From an owners perspective, I think this - and the total disaster they continue to make on sync to the PC - makes Symbian a bad option. I'd now have to think very seriously before buying another Symbian based device.

[Janak Parekh]

so let me get this straight, ppcthoughts is now an endorser of microsoft smartphone? so is everything non-ms competition, or just CE based stuff? confused :?
Well, it's all a grey area. Symbian is not only a competitor to Smartphone, but also to WinCE and Pocket PC. Don't read too much into the categorization of news items... I was more trying to be humorous than anything else. ;)

--janak

[ThomasC22]

so let me get this straight, ppcthoughts is now an endorser of microsoft smartphone? so is everything non-ms competition, or just CE based stuff? confused :?


Wasn't there a poll about this just recently? :)

Seriously, I LIKE hearing about smartphone technology and I think (if I recall the poll correctly) most people here do as well. That said, I hope that some time in the future the site adds "Smartphones" as a filter feature so that people who aren't interested won't have to be bothered with it.

[heov]

so let me get this straight, ppcthoughts is now an endorser of microsoft smartphone? so is everything non-ms competition, or just CE based stuff? confused :?


Wasn't there a poll about this just recently? :)

Seriously, I LIKE hearing about smartphone technology and I think (if I recall the poll correctly) most people here do as well. That said, I hope that some time in the future the site adds "Smartphones" as a filter feature so that people who aren't interested won't have to be bothered with it.

no i like hearing about the smartphone news (but wasn't the poll like a couple of months ago?)... but as janek said, i read too much into the categorization ;) I could understand something like the p800 being competition, but how can a smartphone (phone w/ pda, not a pda w/ phone) be competition to a pda (in today's market)? I know... it doesn't matter and I take things too seriously:)

[Norbert Aquende]

the sendo phone was really a disappointment. By the time it was being demoed my Microsoft Philippines, sendo came out with the announcement that its dumping MS.

Although, now i feel a lot better because we are having a Smartphone to be brought in by our countries largest cellular operater, Smart. Although the name of the phone sounds kinda corny: the Smart Amazing Phone :oops: but at least it will be based on the Tanager reference model. But a lot of us here are disapointed because it doesnt have bluetooth. bluetooth is quite popular in the Philippines

[Cardie]

From a IT-DIRECTOR.COM article...
'Then there is the cost per device for Smartphone 2002 SDK. The royalty was reported to be about $5 per shipping device. If the Symbian partners were to ship a total of 400 million units per annum and just 10% of them were Smartphones, then $200 million in royalties would go to Microsoft. Clearly, it is cheaper to support the Symbian development only.


Symbian Licence is also $5 per smartphone, and $10 per Communicator. Add the $5 to Nokia for using Series 60 and (surprisingly) going with the Microsoft solution is 50% cheaper than the (Symbain + Nokia) solution. So the financial arguments (viz a viz licencing) is not in Sendo's favour.

I think other reasons forced the change on them ;-)

[Stik]

Cardie,

Thanks for the information, I didn't realize that! :oops:

I was feeling a little :twisted: when I posted that rather biased commentary. :wink:

Seems Microsoft's strategy is bypassing the traditional phonemakers and having the telco's themselves go direct to contract manufacturers for their smartphones....

' T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom, will buy handsets manufactured by Taiwan contract manufacturer High Tech Computer , the same company that built the first Microsoft-enabled handset for France's mobile operator Orange, a unit of France Telecom'

and...

' In addition, a mobile phone reference design that Microsoft and U.S. chip giant Intel announced last year, will now be available to mobile operators through Taiwan's electronics contract manufacturer Wistron, traditionally a laptop producer which recently started making handheld computers for U.S. computer maker Dell. '
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030217/3/37uxm.html

In yet another move, Samsung, one of the top 5 phone manufacturers, and the only one in Microsoft's smartphone 'camp,' seems to be hedging on their bet...

Samsung takes 5% share in Symbian

http://www.cmpnetasia.com/ViewArt.cfm?Artid=18674&Catid=2&subcat=23

[Cardie]

Seems Microsoft's strategy is bypassing the traditional phonemakers and having the telco's themselves go direct to contract manufacturers for their smartphones....


That might be a little bit clearer if you said "Microsoft's current strategy is..." Back when Pocket PC Phone Edition was pushed/hyped/marketed/flogged as the next best thing to hit the Mobile Phone Market, it did circle pretty much every manufacturer (apart from Nokia) to find partners.

For a long time it looked as if Ericsson would sign up (to the point they signed... something...) and Pocket IE was ported to the Rx80 series machines.

From what I recal, as each big leauge player passed, a smaller dynamin fast growing player came on board, until MS were left with Sendo and Samsung. It reamins to be seen what happened with Sendo, but now Samsung are visible hedging their bets - and with Symbian announcing this directly after the low key MS/Samsung announcement...

Spoilsports!