Posts Tagged ‘symbian’
We’ll say it again: Nokia’s keen on Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7
Now this sounds familiar. For the past month, Nokia has apparently been in discussions with Microsoft about putting its new Windows Phone 7 software on Nokia hardware, according to .
Murtazin writes that Nokia’s new management — which includes Stephen Elop, former head of Microsoft’s business division and — has started talks with the software giant to increase their cooperation. Primarily, Nokia seems to be interested in putting Windows Phone 7 on its hardware, pushing it through its normal distribution channels and adding features common to its own phones.
The news points to Nokia’s desperation to get a modern operating system on its phones while we wait for its next-generation Meego OS. Such an arrangement would also put Microsoft’s software in the hands of many more users. Teaming up would make sense for the companies because they both consider Google a common enemy with its Android platform.
VentureBeat’s Matthaus Krzykowski in September , and it was confirmed by multiple sources. But Nokia was quick to deny it, saying that . Given that Elop was named Nokia’s CEO earlier in September, the notion that the phone manufacturer was getting in bed with Microsoft didn’t seem that far-fetched.
Now after the lackluster release of Nokia’s Symbian-powered N8 smartphone (which ), it’s becoming clearer that the company needs a stop-gap software solution before its long-delayed Meego OS is released.
Murtazin is known for his scoops in the mobile arena, so the fact that he’s now hearing about Nokia/Microsoft talks tells me that our initial report was mostly on the money.
If Nokia is indeed going to adopt Windows Phone 7, it will have to move quickly. Word is that the company’s Meego phones won’t be coming until late 2011, so if Microsoft’s software is meant to fill that release void, Nokia will need to implement Windows Phone 7 soon.
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Another delay for Nokia: E7 smartphone pushed to early 2011
, the Finnish cellphone maker, said on Tuesday that it will delay the rollout of the E7 smartphone to early 2011, missing the holiday shopping season.
Originally, the enterprise user-oriented smartphone was meant to be out in December. According to Nokia, the company is pushing back the release of the phone to ensure “the best possible user experience on the E7”.
Nokia’s previous high-end smartphone, , and when released, the reception was , to say the least. The E7’s big claim to fame is its sliding mechanism and hardware keyboard, otherwise it’s basically the same as the N8. The N8 and E7 models are seen as flagships of the latest version of the Nokia-developed Symbian OS, which is struggling to stay relevant in a time when Google-owned Android OS and Apple’s iOS are gaining ground quickly in the smartphone OS market. (According to a recent , Android will become the second-largest smartphone OS this year and possibly take over Symbian in 2014.)
While the delayed releases of both models attest to the fact that 2010 has not been a high point for Symbian, Nokia is planning multiple upgrades to the OS in the next 12 to 15 months. According to a ComputerWorld , Nokia will come out with four or five upgrades, honing the operating system with frequent improvements instead of major upgrades that are a long time apart.
It remains to be seen if Nokia’s efforts are enough to regain lost territory in the smartphone OS market with Symbian, which is largely seen as a clunky operating system that is dragging the company down. Then again, the company is not betting all its money on the same horse, as it is launching its new MeeGo operating system sometime next year, which, if we are to believe the company’s SVP of Design, Marko Ahtisaari, . Just don’t hold your breath waiting for it, either.
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Nokia’s N8 smartphone facing power issues
In yet another strike against Nokia’s new flagship smartphone, the that its N8 phone is having power management issues for “a very small number” of users.
The issue in a nutshell: Some N8 users are reporting that their device no longer turns on. What’s worse, their phones won’t even charge properly — a clear sign that some aspect of the device’s power hardware is faulty.
Nokia assured customers that the issue is covered by its warranty — going so far as to bring out executive vice president Niklas Savander to discuss the device’s build quality (video below).
But while it’s nice to know that the issue is covered, dealing with a warranty replacement is certainly something no user will welcome. Hopefully Nokia will do the right thing and ship users replacement phones before they have to return the faulty phones. At least there won’t be any downtime for users with that method.
The issue is surprising given that the N8’s hardware was the one aspect of the device I was impressed by . Nokia has historically made handsome and sturdy hardware, so I wonder what exactly is going wrong with these faulty N8s.
The company is stressing that only a small number of users are affected right now, which I certainly hope is the truth. The last thing Nokia needs right now is for its flagship smartphone to be a ticking time bomb.
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Apple’s Wozniak calls Android the winner in smartphone race
[Update: Wozniak has said he was slightly misquoted during the interview to gadget blog Engadget.]
Oh Woz, we love it when you shoot from the hip.
Apple’s own co-founder Steve Wozniak managed to spill the beans on an Apple phone preceding the iPhone, bash Nokia and call the winner in the mobile operating system race — with a Dutch-language newspaper today.
Wozniak said that Android would likely become the dominant mobile operating system ahead of Nokia’s Symbian and Apple’s iPhone operating system, iOS. That should come as zero surprise, because analysts have been .
Wozniak said Android would grow so large and have such a pervasive market presence, the phones would inevitably have more features than the iPhone. Part of that probably has to do with the religiously closed development process for the iPhone. But Apple holds, and would still have, the lead in terms of smartphone quality, he said.
The company — and particularly its CEO Steve Jobs — has always been known for having ridiculously high standards for its products. The iPhone manufacturer actually teamed up with a Japanese company in 2004 to produce a mobile phone, but ended up axing the project, Wozniak said.
Apple doesn’t seem like the kind of company that would feel too bad about not having a commanding market share when it delivers a high-end product. That’s the design philosophy the largest consumer manufacturer in the world has had for its line of personal computers and laptops for some time now. That’s lead to steady — but by no means explosive — growth in its PC sales. Just last quarter, when compared to the same quarter a year earlier. With the price point the Mac computers have, Apple certainly shouldn’t feel like it isn’t making enough money off the line of computers.
Nokia still maintains a commanding lead in terms of market share from the sheer volume of phones it produces, but Gartner predicts that Android will overtake it by 2014. The company recently rolled out a few changes to challenge the upstart Android, including its new — which more or less fell flat with consumers — and a new CEO, Microsoft’s . Wozniak said Nokia was “the brand of the previous generation” and was well on its way out.
Wozniak called into Engadget to say that Apple would eventually catch up to some of the features Android has that Apple’s iPhone is currently missing (it has acquired , for example, which Android already had). But he said he expects Android to be a lot like Windows — in the sense that a majority of people would use Android, despite there being better products in the market.
“It can get greater market share and still be crappy,” he said to Engadget.
Then again, that’s pretty much obvious, given Nokia’s current position.
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Apple’s Wozniak calls Android the winner in smartphone race
[Update: Wozniak has said he was slightly misquoted during the interview to gadget blog Engadget.]
Oh Woz, we love it when you shoot from the hip.
Apple’s own co-founder Steve Wozniak managed to spill the beans on an Apple phone preceding the iPhone, bash Nokia and call the winner in the mobile operating system race — with a Dutch-language newspaper today.
Wozniak said that Android would likely become the dominant mobile operating system ahead of Nokia’s Symbian and Apple’s iPhone operating system, iOS. That should come as zero surprise, because analysts have been .
Wozniak said Android would grow so large and have such a pervasive market presence, the phones would inevitably have more features than the iPhone. Part of that probably has to do with the religiously closed development process for the iPhone. But Apple holds, and would still have, the lead in terms of smartphone quality, he said.
The company — and particularly its CEO Steve Jobs — has always been known for having ridiculously high standards for its products. The iPhone manufacturer actually teamed up with a Japanese company in 2004 to produce a mobile phone, but ended up axing the project, Wozniak said.
Apple doesn’t seem like the company that would feel too bad about not having a commanding market share when they deliver a high-end product. That’s the design philosophy the largest consumer manufacturer in the world has had for its line of personal computers and laptops for some time now. That’s lead to steady — but by no means explosive — growth in its PC sales. Just last quarter, when compared to the same quarter a year earlier. With the price point the Mac computers have, Apple certainly shouldn’t feel like it isn’t making enough money off the line of computers.
Nokia still maintains a commanding lead in terms of market share from the sheer volume of phones they produce, but Gartner predicts that Android will overtake it by 2014. The company recently rolled out a few changes to challenge the upstart Android, including its new — which more or less fell flat with consumers — and a new CEO, Microsoft’s . Wozniak said Nokia was “the brand of the previous generation” and was well on its way out.
Wozniak called into Engadget to say that Apple would eventually catch up to some of the features Android has that Apple’s iPhone are currently missing — like with the that Android already had. But he said he expects Android to be a lot like Windows — in the sense that a majority of people would use Android, despite there being better products in the market.
“It can get greater market share and still be crappy,” he said to Engadget.
Then again, that’s pretty much obvious, given Nokia’s current position.
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The biggest phone makers in the world are falling behind
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Apple, BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion and HTC were the only major phone makers to gain ground in the phone market over the course of the past year ending in the third quarter, .
Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson — all manufacturers of voice-centric feature phones as well as smartphones — all saw significant drops in total market share. That’s likely a testament to the increasing popularity of smartphones — whose sales nearly doubled in the third quarter this year when compared to the same quarter last year. Android continues to grow and now runs on a quarter of all smartphones — creeping ever closer to Symbian. Gartner predicted that Android would as the most popular smartphone OS by 2014.
Symbian, the operating system of Nokia, continues its terminal velocity free-fall into phone limbo as its market share fell from 36.7 percent in the third quarter last year to 28.2 percent of all phone users in the same quarter this year. Nokia publicly acknowledged Symbian’s messy status when it stepped in and from the non-profit Symbian Foundation. Its baffling attempt at a smartphone chained to the Symbian platform — the Nokia N8 —, according to VentureBeat’s mobile writer Devindra Hardawar.
Apple picked up about an extra 1 percent of the total number of phone users in the third quarter this year compared to the same quarter a year earlier. Research in Motion picked up about an extra tenth of a percent. HTC, which manufactures a number of phones running on Google’s Android operating system, nearly doubled its market share — growing from 0.9 percent to 1.6 percent of total smartphone users.
Despite a strong showing from Apple in the third quarter, , the total number of smartphone carriers using its iPhone operating system fell slightly in the third quarter this year when compared to the same quarter in 2009. That will probably change when the mythical . Until then, around 75 percent of smartphones sold by Verizon have run on Android.
All these metrics may also become completely disrupted as tablet computers begin to dominate the mobile market next year, Gartner said. The technology research firm is predicting that the internet-connected tablet market will reach 54.8 million devices in 2011 — so that might also have an impact on Apple’s market share of smartphone operating systems, according to Gartner.
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Symbian fail: Nokia takes over platform development as Symbian Foundation implodes
In yet another blow to the Symbian platform, the non-profit that it will transition to a licensing-only role, while Nokia will continue development of the mobile platform on its own.
“The founding board members took a bold strategic step in setting up the foundation, which was absolutely the right decision at the time,” wrote Symbian Foundation executive director Tim Holbrow. “There has since been a seismic change in the mobile market but also more generally in the economy, which has led to a change in focus for some of our funding board members. The result of this is that the current governance structure for the Symbian platform – the foundation — is no longer appropriate.”
The Symbian Foundation will lay off its 100 full-time employees, and by April 2011 it will be governed by non-executive directors who will manage the licensing operations. Nokia senior vice president Jo Harlow stresses that the company is still committed to Symbian — it expects to sell more than 50 million Symbian^3 devices like.
A few weeks ago, we from his position for “personal reasons.” At the time, there were murmurs that it was the beginning of the end for the Symbian Foundation. The platform also lost much of its third-party support recently — Motorola dropped Symbian last year and fully committed to Android, in September, and last month.
Symbian is still the world’s leading smartphone platform, but it’s market share is quickly slipping. Research firm Gartner in market share by 2014 — from 40.1 percent to 30.2 percent — and a steady decline as well.
Given that Nokia was the last major contributor standing in the Symbian Foundation, it makes sense for it to take over the platform’s development duties. The company says that the announcement won’t affect the upcoming — but it’s certainly going to be a stormy cloud hanging over that event.
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