News Forum Phone database

> New Topic
> Reply
< Esato Forum Index > Sony Ericsson / Sony > General > Why do SE not used Smartphones More? Bookmark topic

I can see the point of view from people who like Java phones. But as an SE fan who really likes Symbian, I'm a bit miffed that SE dosnt have more to offer. The P990 is a bit bulky for me and although the p1 is a nice phone, feature wise it dosnt match the N95.

And I don't intend to make this an SE vs Nokia thread since although I've had Nokia phones and liked them, my heart is with SE.

I feel like SE are playing catch up at the moment, and I'm not used to it!
--
Posted: 2007-10-21 23:20:24
Edit : Quote



Of course I do.
In the first quote I was saying that I prefer to use Java OS'es.
In the second, I was complaining about blackberries and I mentioned the p1 at the end.
Problem?
--
Posted: 2007-10-21 23:29:35
Edit : Quote


I think the main reason SE hasn't ramped up UIQ3 production is two fold:

1. Tradtionally for SE the UIQ phones have been orientated to the business market and they have only really started to broaden this with the W950. Previous to that they were targetting a much smaller market. Being a small company with smaller marketshare than say Nokia, SE smartphones are probably equivalent to the Nokia E series in terms of the proportion of the companies overall range and the market segment they are aimed at. This is changing with W950/W960 and hopefully this signifies a growing trend towards non-business orientated UIQ smartphones.

2. SE still have not implemented UIQ hardscreens. No one knows why for sure, but now that Motorola are working on UIQ hardscreens, I expect SE will aslo go down that path. I think the reason they haven't is they are still concentrating on expanding the mid range, but now this is done, perhaps we will see the first hardscreen UIQ from SE soon?

UIQ once was business only - now it's expanding to multimedia. Then SE had to ramp up midrange production in non-smartphone to improve marketshare. The next thing on their agenda (hopefully) is to further develop the hardscreen platform and bring out some high end hardscreen phones.

The fact is a touchscreen phone takes a lot more resources, development and testing to get right compared to hardscreen, so you will never see a plethora of UIQ touchscreens the way you see Nokia bring out symbian devices, you can't compare the two segments. (note I'm only using Nokia as a relevant example)

The only way forward (in terms of increasing the smartphone range significantly) is either hardscreen UIQ's, or more advanced JAVA api's that have a more seemless integration with the phone interface.



--
Posted: 2007-10-22 01:45:37
Edit : Quote


Another factor to consider, once upon a time SE only made one UIQ at a time. P800, P900, P910, P990 - then you had two (+M600) then 3 (+W950) parallel devices all in a short period of time.

So the Symbian range is increasing in portfolio size anyway, just not as fast as we would like
--
Posted: 2007-10-22 01:52:39
Edit : Quote


Reasons that SE is not bringing out more smartphones (esp for mass-market) are:-


1. Unstable and expensive platform. UIQ3 is resource intensive to develop and SE maybe find it not economical to put more effort here. SE cannot put in as much money in UIQ3 like Nokia does with S60 as there is no market volume for UIQ3 phones yet. Furthermore UIQ3 touchscreen phones is up against HTC WMs phone. And we know HTC is just dedicated to making smartphones and with Microsoft support, UIQ3 is unable to compete.

2. SE dont have a hardscreen UIQ3 platform yet. Putting a TS increase cost and selling price and relegate the phone to a niche TS market.
Uphill task to compete with the established S60. Even if hardscreen UIQ is here, it would be very difficult for SE to come out with something as cheap as the 6120 or E65.

3. SE have no firm plan what is it gonna do in the smartphone segment. With the 50% sales of UIQ3 to Motorola can mean one or 2 things - Either SE is looking at getting out of UIQ3 and taking on the WM (or other) as a smartphone platform OR SE is at the start of abandoning completely the smartphone segment.

--
Posted: 2007-10-22 06:18:30
Edit : Quote


Not necessarily. With Motorola having 50% ownership, that means two companies with different experience base both investing in UIQ, but both companies can benefit from each other's innovations. So it's a way of making UIQ more broad based, which is only going to make UIQ more flexible and better in the long run. If SE wanted out of UIQ they would have sold it complete, or would never have bought it lock stock and barrel off Symbian in the first place. Symbian controlling interest lies with Nokia, who you can be sure would thottle SE attempts to improve UIQ at every corner.

It's also a way of broadening the application support for the UIQ platform.

Obviously SE is hedging their bets somewhat, but so what? Nokia have used UIQ in the past when they wanted to field a touchscreen device without actually developing s60 touchscreen capacity (after they had dropped s90). But they have pulled out of UIQ and are developing s60 for touchscreen (thanks iPhone) and no doubt don't want to be spending resources on UIQ development when it's of no use to them.

Note it's a 50% share not 51 or 49. This means no one has controlling interest. This is a sure sign to me that SE see Motorola as a partner in UIQ development, not as a buyer. They didn't sell UIQ to make money, they did it to improve the blood, like you might mate two thoroughbreds to combine the best traits of both.

So I'm pretty excited about this partnership, and it encourages me all the more that SE will eventually field hardscreen UIQ devices.


--
Posted: 2007-10-22 13:05:43
Edit : Quote


I'm sure sooner or later SE will realise that their own UI on the K series, W series (non smartphones that is) is limiting the phones potential, particularly when they're pitted against S60 phones.

I hope more resources are placed in UIQ development, I see it as a platform with excellent potential.
--
Posted: 2007-10-22 14:33:42
Edit : Quote


I know people laugh at this, but the Java platform may offer salvation. Not yet, but a few more improvements to JAVA integration and we may see phones that don't need to be "smart" in the traditional sense.

The main thing left for JAVA to address is the ability to interface with phone functions (make calls, answer calls ie be able to code an answering machine app, and things of that nature).

On top of that the A200 UI needs to have the ability to have active phone tasks (for example browser, file manager) bookmarked so that you can return to the same position you left via a "taskswitch" function.

These two factors would greatly address the shortfall between smartphone and non-smartphone handsets. (hardscreens)
--
Posted: 2007-10-22 15:14:33
Edit : Quote


se is more interested in fun features, like cams and mp3, the launched p series are nice, but not that impressive as s60 fones imo...

i am just wondering, where to disappeared the /// tradition, when they r380, it wsa a big wow, seems se isnt able for the same "wow effect" or probably most /// guys left se when they saw the way too much fun feature "influence" and didnt want to "support" that way. more the taridional way of a great brand, which was able to make also"serious" fones
--
Posted: 2007-10-22 15:56:14
Edit : Quote

---

New Topic   Reply

Forum Index