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@super g, re: "Hence I think SE should license s60 or develop their own smartphone with a normal keypad." I agree. I just think they will do their own, not s60. And yes they will have some work to do to make it budget.

I mentioned somewhere I think it's possible, but unlikely, that SE could bring out a candybar hard screen UIQ phone along with the next touchscreen model.

Despite our slight differences of opinions dude, you are atleast giving reasoned arguments.

"Yes, SE is certainly leading its 6th position in the market.", Is the title of this thread about market share? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think it was.



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Posted: 2005-03-23 14:19:50
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On 2005-03-23 14:03:39, Super G wrote:
... (ah, but vanquish came up with the title, no wonder. It couldnt be more vague, hence this thread going banana.


Please try and contain your posts to the debate and refrain from petty personal squabbles. Thank you.

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I believe 6680 is THE actual mobile phone that has everything a mobile phone can possibly have today. WCDMA, EDGE (Class 10), great screen, two cameras, S60, hot-swap MMC, etc etc. In terms of integration, difficult to beat that at the moment.


And yet people aren't quite pushing each other out of the way to get one ...

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Nokia has created a whole new market here ...


No, Nokia has substituted much of their range for smartphones, essentially fencing many of their customers into buying one.

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Their problem is very likely UIQ which requires a touch screen.


UIQ 3.0 does not.

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A high-end phone is defined as per its pricetag. Full point. Whatever that phone supports whether its a smartphone or not.


Incorrect. A high-end phone is one, which has a wide range of high quality features, whether they be smartphone features or not. Price is not an indicator of whether a product is high-end or not. That logic would then suggets that the more expensive the phone the more high-end it is. Poppycock!

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Smartphone as I said should address all ends of the market. Likely difficult for low-ends, but certainly mid-end must be available. has no offering there, and I doubt they will have if they only use UIQ. ,


Must they? Apart from Nokia no manufacturer is devoting as much time end effort to smartphones. Perhaps they recognise that most customers simply aren't interested at the moment.

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trust me, license s60 and you will sell a lot of phones.
[quote]

Trust me, be the largets mobile phone manufacturer in the world and substitute much of your product range for smartphones and you will sell a lot of phones.

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P910 can compete, technically (if you forget EDGE). You got me wrong. But its pricetag is hurting its competitiveness.


The Pxxx series was never designed to appeal to a broad market, it was designed to appeal primarily to business users.

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Yes, is certainly leading its 6th position in the market.


SE are currently ranked 6th in the world, hardly surprising when you take into account the fact that they don't divert a huge amount of resources to comepeting in markets such as Africa, India, China, etc. SE's strongest market is Europe, where they are doing really rather well.

SE have a regional approach, they have built a strong base in Europe and they are now starting to slowly expand out into other markets with a greater presence.

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[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2005-03-23 13:28 ]

[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2005-03-23 13:43 ]
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Posted: 2005-03-23 14:27:10
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@scots,

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"No, Nokia has substituted much of their range for smartphones, essential fencing many of their customers into buying one."

Right On! That is exactly why smartphones have a steam on in the mid range market. I watched that happen too, man. I remember seeing one model after another eaten up by s60, and all my nokia buying friends just kept on buying nokias "they're the best man" not even knowing they were smartphones!

Nokia dumped s60 on everyone, exactly because they want to own the symbian market!

But SE won't let it happen, sorry Super G, it ain't gonna happen!!
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Posted: 2005-03-23 14:37:02
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@Super G

Absolutely agree with you that the 6680 is a very impressive handset. I will wait until I actually see it before deciding whether it fulfills the potential the spec suggests. Even so, I would prefer the 2MP camera, FM Radio, and certainly the aesthetics of the K750i, though whether they're even truly comparable (given the status of the 6680 as a smartphone - which, incidentally, the Nokia consider to be a business phone) is open to question. And EDGE and PTT are an utter irrelevance to us on this li'l Island. Also, with only 10MB internal, it had better become a whole lot easier to get hold of Dual-voltage RSMMCs than it currently is, if you are to be able to use the capability of this phone!

I would, however, certainly question your theory that smartphones should not be confined to the top-end of the market. We have established a number of things thus far:

1. We cannot prove the validity of this either way.
2. The weight of (educated) opinion suggests that we should accept that a vast number of Nokia (and therefore S60) smartphone users are smartphone users by coincidence and not by design (in terms of intention to use "smart" features).
3. Certain posters here have a desire to turn the discussion away from the true thread topic...

It is not arguable that Nokia sell more smartphones (and more of every other kind of phone) than . There are statistics to prove this beyond doubt. However, we are not talking solely about quantity, nor is this an accurate representation, in this market, of quality. The "Average Joe" is not a member here(!) and uses their phone to make calls and send text messages - I presume nobody wants to question this most obvious of statements (dangerous assumption with certain present company).

What I interpret the title as meaning (far from being vague, as you suggest) is much more about innovation, the development of technology and the clarity of direction for the future. , having pioneered Bluetooth, been at the forefront of Symbian (along with Nokia/Psion/Motorola) and for the very reason that they don't produce mass-market saturation, seem to know exactly where they're going. For me, and it is a matter of opinion, it is Nokia who have the catching up to do. There is one factor that you are all (edit: I have just seen scots' post - frightening telepathy!) failing to consider:

It is fair to say that Nokia has adopted Series 60 and has UIQ. Now, up till now, devices have all been based on versions of UIQ that required a pen-based touchscreen interface. The introduction of UIQ 3.0 will open up the capability to introduce this OS into mid-range handsets (which has not been an option so far, solely for this reason) and to produce a variety of handsets, with different form factors, based on this operating system. Since the P910i has been widely acclaimed as the best smartphone ever produced, it stands to reason that this new UI (which everyone seems to have forgotten about) could shake up the entire global market, if, as MIB and his band of brothers have suggested, everybody really does want a smartphone. If not, those people will remain contented with the likes of the K750i (if it's imaging you're into) or the W800 (if you're a music lover) as the best of the non-smartphones.

Have finally taken the lead? I'm not sure that they can claim that yet (some inroads into market share are needed to justify this claim) but I am damn certain that they are well on the way and 2005 might just be their year!


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[ This Message was edited by: dave_uk on 2005-03-23 14:06 ]
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Posted: 2005-03-23 15:01:32
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@dave I think your last paragraph is accurate, atleast as far as the long haul goes.

I think SE have been leading the market in innovation since they started. Other OEMs are either focussing on quantity, copying the others, or jumping into bed with microsoft for the image factor.

However SE's innovation will only allow them to keep the title of leading global mobile phone solutions provider in the long term if they can translate innovation into sales. They don't have to be number one in sales, but if they languish at 6th for too long it will impact their development budget and they could either collapse in on themselves, or become an exclusive manufacturer for tight lucrative markets (like Japan where they already have some high priced japanese only models).


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Posted: 2005-03-23 15:23:09
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@max

As I have said before, SE have been following a regional strategy to date. They have concentrated their efforts upon Europe (especially Western Europe) and Japan.

As SE stablise their business performance (it wasn't all that long ago that they were registering losses) they will be able to expand more thoroughly and with a greater impact into markets like India and the Amercas.

It is very much a long term process and I don't think we should expect to see SE leaping ahead of Samsung or Motorola, nevermind Nokia, anytime soon. From their current strategy one can perhaps see a policy of establishing themselves well within specific markets rather than trying to dominate the global market as a whole.

SE know that they have neither the resources or the manufacturing capability to be a truely global player at the moment. Nokia and Samsung try to appeal to broad cross-sections of the market, SE don't. SE concentrate on certain products and know how to aim for their target market.
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Posted: 2005-03-23 15:29:13
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I agree that SE know exactly what they are doing now. I think their shaky start may have been due to teething problems rather than failure of SE's starting game plan.

But I've never sat in an SE boardroom.

I think a big part of the strategy behind forming SE would have been recognising the perfect marriage of Ericsson's experience as an innovator in mobile phone technology, and Sony's manufacturing and marketing experience in the mass market.

Interestingly, as far as marketing goes, has anyone noticed Sony have dropped support for atrac in the W800? This is an example of marketing manipulation (essentially what drm is designed for) efforts by Sony that have been rejected by the phone buying public. Sony never even considered dropping atrac in their walkmen, it wasn't until the hbm30 that they even had an mp3 player!! Now they have the first walkman that doesn't even support atrac, and it's a phone!

The relationship between Sony and Ericsson has led to Sony having a less penny pinching attitude towards drm.

It may have had a shaky start but it's a relationship with a lot of potential.
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Posted: 2005-03-23 15:59:29
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@max

There was something not that long ago about how Sony were shaking up their business practices to become more competitive.
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Posted: 2005-03-23 16:17:58
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hmm, interesting.

Just did a bit of a google; this is what sony's new ceo said: "We look forward to joining our twin pillars of engineering and technology with our commanding presence in entertainment and content creation to deliver the most advanced devices and forms of entertainment to the consumer," Sir Howard said.
http://www.aurorawdc.com/ci/000296.html

It's obvious they see the mobile phone as a key element in content provision. The reason they aren't so focussed on smartphones, is because content doesn't need special software. They want to give you a handset all ready to go, not something with software on that the user can accidently delete and then not be able to download content.
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Posted: 2005-03-23 16:30:07
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@ dave uk

I do certainly appreciate your reasoning and posts, even if we may have some diverging opinion -to some extent.

UIQ3.0 as correctly pointed out offers alternatives to pen-based input. I was referring to earlier version of UIQ that didnt have other alternative but pen-based earlier. Anyway, you understood that judging from your last post.

I think UIQ3.0 will offer completely new market opportunities to and as such will allow to do what Nokia does with s60, no doubt about that. Though could still license s60 I do believe in fact it has hit not to have any cheap smartphone to date. Sure they have very good non-smartphones that are real hits, but they could have more (without competing with their own range). What Nokia is showing to the market (and in fact pioneering) is that you can sell millions of smartphones without people necessarily knowing they get a smartphone. And it works. Smartphones are not the mainstream, but their proportion in the market will continue to explode whether people knowingly buy a smartphone or just the phone part of it.
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Posted: 2005-03-23 16:37:30
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