08-29-2006, 06:00 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Symbian Claims To Leave Windows Mobile In The Dust
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33911
"A SUPER confident Symbian is claiming to have kept the Beast of Redmond at bay with a 65 to 70 per cent share of the smartphone sector, according to CEO, Nigel Clifford."
Doesn't it also depend on how you define what a smartphone is? I'd say some Symbian powered models are little more than feature phones.
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08-29-2006, 06:37 PM
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Sage
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 797
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Someone should just walk right up to Nigel and ask him, "Outside of Europe, do you honestly think anyone buys a phone because of Symbian, or because it happens to run on Symbian?"
Then, as he says, "Because it runs on Symbian," you kick him in the shin and laugh at him.
Symbian is not a choice for many people, it's an included feature of a phone they're already buying.
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08-29-2006, 07:39 PM
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Theorist
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 274
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Vincent M Ferrari
Someone should just walk right up to Nigel and ask him, "Outside of Europe, do you honestly think anyone buys a phone because of Symbian, or because it happens to run on Symbian?"
Then, as he says, "Because it runs on Symbian," you kick him in the shin and laugh at him.
Symbian is not a choice for many people, it's an included feature of a phone they're already buying.
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Thats what i think as well. Most people in Europe buy Nokia's but they are probably buying the Nokia brand name rather than the OS the device is running. The fact that its running Symbian probably doesnt matter as much to them as having the latest Nokia phone to show off.
Windows Mobile devices however I feel are perceived differently - as mobile versions of Windows and are purchased for their actual capabilities rather than a desire solely to have the newest phone.
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08-29-2006, 08:30 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 20
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I live in the UK so have some perspective on this issue - I think there are probably two categories of Symbian users in the UK; Ex Psion PDA users and regular phone users that do not fully realise that they have a smartphone.
The Psion OS went through a number of developments and eventually became known as Symbian.
The Psion 5 and Psion Revo were truly great PDAs for their day and became very successful for a couple of years. The problem was Psion stopped manufacturing and the competition from Windows CE devices with colour screens and media fuctions was on the increase. Many of the users remained loyal to Psion but once you were ready for a change alternatives became limited.
When my Psion 5 started to look and feel old the only option for me was to buy a Nokia Communicator - a large brick like phone which ran a Symbian OS similar to the Psion. For me, and many in the Psion community Nokia became the new Psion and as they began to release different phones with different versions of the OS Psion/Symbian users would upgrade - much the same as we do with new Pocket PCs.
I wouldnt underestimate the loyal fanbase that symbian has in the UK - around two years ago I would say about half the people I met with a symbian phone knew exactly what they had and what they could do with their devices. Today I would say this has dropped to around a 3rd as more and more devices have been released.
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08-29-2006, 08:59 PM
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Pupil
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 17
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Good sensible post Rocky. I sometimes despair of the blinkered pro PPC mentality on this site that seems to think every other o/s (particularly the Palm o/s) is rubbish.
I have a P910i in addition to my Dell Axim..the 910i is a delight to use. Lean, reliable and highly functional. It's a shame that the replacement 990 is so expensive.
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08-29-2006, 10:23 PM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 541
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Re: Symbian Claims To Leave Windows Mobile In The Dust
Quote:
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Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry
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"A SUPER confident Symbian is claiming to have kept the Beast of Redmond at bay with a 65 to 70 per cent share of the smartphone sector, according to CEO, Nigel Clifford."
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That's exactly the attitude that some other company had some 6 years ago...
Microsoft had 0% market share in smartphones when they started in 2002/2003. Now 3 years later, they have roughly between 25-30% (judging by the numbers above), so in another few years who knows.
I do think that Symbian is nice OS and some devices are really nice, maybe if I could find decent replacements for my software and if more devices would have touch screen I would even try one out.
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08-30-2006, 12:47 AM
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Pupil
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 37
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Quote:
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Someone should just walk right up to Nigel and ask him, "Outside of Europe, do you honestly think anyone buys a phone because of Symbian, or because it happens to run on Symbian?"
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Have you seen Symbian's figures for Asia? India, Japan, China... all doing way better than the competition. It's only really in North America where Symbian is an unknown.
But I agree with most of the comments here. It's manufacturers who benefit most from Symbian, not the consumer. The manufacturer wants a mutli-tasking, feature rich OS but the consumer is pretty much ignorant. They just buy whichever phone best suits their needs without even thinking about the OS on it.
Symbian does its niche very well, just like Windows Mobile does.
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08-30-2006, 05:48 AM
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Philosopher
Join Date: Jul 2003
Posts: 548
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Apparently it is only in North America where Symbian devices are not as popular. Almost all Symbian devices available run on the GSM network. Pretty much a minority in NA...
In the Philippines, people buy a Nokia or a Sony Ericsson unit because of the brand. The OS that is built into it being not really being a factor...
Until recently, people are looking for better versions of the Sony-Ericsson P900>P910>and now the P990i. They've come to know the OS and are sticking by it.
The users of these devices have been loyal to the brand for a while now. Nokia being the leader in mobile communications, and those who want to be different going for the Sony-Ericsson.
Okay, so people bought their phones because it was made by Nokia... but then they realized that since it runs on Symbian, they can do much more.
They had good hardware that worked with all previous hardware available from the same company. New Nokia units could easily talk with old Nokia units... vCard sending over SMS, the ease of saving a contact number from a call, from an SMS, cut and paste of tesxt messages, replying with a quoted previous message, etc.
Even Sony-Ericsson phones could talk to Nokia phones and had most of the features as well. But when we tried marketing the Smartphone 2002 powered devices here... all were disappointed that it couldn't even perform any better than the most basic Nokia phone available at that time. Windows powered smartphones surely had special features... a lot of them. But it didn't have the basic features of every GSM phone. Sure, your Smartphone can talk to another Smartphone or a Pocket PC Phone Edition device, but try sending or receiving a business card via SMS in the vCard format. Windows powered devices simply fail at this task.
Nokia and Sony-Ericsson make good phones... That's why people like them. Adding an OS to them becomes an added feature... not a replacement for the basic.
Microsoft powered device are wonderful devices as well, but they've never been good phones. They've never included the essentials of what makes a GSM phone a good mobile phone.
__________________
Carlo GuerreroFot�grafo ProfesionalMicrosoft MVP, Mobile Devices
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08-30-2006, 11:01 AM
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Intellectual
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 171
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So good I switched to Samsung
As the subejct says, I found the series 60 implementation on a N70 to be so good I threw it in the bin and bough a Samsung D600.
Now I don't suffer crashes, screen whiteouts, missing calls because the phone doesn't ring and I can actually make calls as well.
Series 60 broke my 7 year allegiance to Nokia. Never again.
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08-30-2006, 12:02 PM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by twpd
Good sensible post Rocky. I sometimes despair of the blinkered pro PPC mentality on this site that seems to think every other o/s (particularly the Palm o/s) is rubbish.
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Where did I comment on the capabilities of the Symbian OS itself?
And you did read the URL of the site you posted this on, right? If I thought there was a better mobile OS for me, I wouldn't be posting here.  Don't expect an unbiased opinion. That is the difference between Pocket PC Thoughts and most other sites. We are biased (just like they are) and we are very up front about it. :wink:
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