So what happens now? With the dust settling on the Mobile
World Congress (and the Barcelona
location has already held the ExpoCadena conference and is currently dealing
with the Cosmo Wellness Conference...), what do we all do now?
For the manufacturers, this question is partly moot. The
programs shown at MWC will continue to move forward - some of them are almost
ready for the public (such as Nokia's Ovi Share), while others are more concept
devices and are going to need a lot of work before getting to the market. And
under all of that, there will be little teams all squirreling away trying out
crazy ideas, new interfaces, and thinking the unthinkable (such as "let's try
using Windows Mobile to get noticed in America...").
The manufacturer that doesn't appear to have a clear road
ahead is... Motorola. They've already
alerted the financial markets that they're looking at options for their mobile
division, and their relative obscurity in Barcelona
was noticed by all. One of the interesting features of the mobile world is that
if you want to continue to be seen as a player, you need to be taking the MWC
seriously, with stands, news and presentations, or you find yourself seriously
behind the curve of public recognition. It may take a few months, but expect
Motorola to be unstable till the end of the year - at which point I hope they make a
clear decision either way and don't risk hedging their bets.
Where this leaves UIQ is one of the more interesting medium
term questions. Motorola's shareholding of 50% of the company will factor in
any decision, but it may be that if the phone division closes, the investment
in UIQ remains. Certainly the stability and good thoughts that were evident at
CTIA Wireless last October now look premature.
But with product cycles being what they are, UIQ is assured
of new products well into 2009 even if it were to all stop now, and with the
S60 roadmap seeming to be marching to the tune of Ovi, the relative stability
of the two Symbian platforms is there for all developers to see. Expect more
and more third party applications to take advantage of both this and the user
base of the devices. The big software houses (such as Dataviz and QuickOffice)
are going to continue to polish their application suites - the complexity and
cost offset by the large user base and ‘bundle' deals they already have in
place, but I'd expect a resurgence from smaller developers now they know that
their investment of time and effort required is going to be usable for a long
period.
You always have to assume that the networks have advance
notice of the phones and specs coming up, and the stability should mean that
UIQ and S60 (at least in Europe) are going to
be featuring in catalogues through 2008 and 2009 in prominent fashion.
One thing that the market will be aware of, and watching
with a keen eye, is the threat of commoditization. There is a fine balance
between a high end (smartphone that we all want, and the smartphone we all
buy. If the mid and low range phones become too prevalent, then the cachet of
the S60 and UIQ devices will drop, and this could have an interesting effect on
the market. A massive glut of these phones could have a negative impact on the
profit of all concerned - OR - it could open the floodgates.
With an already significant share of the overall phone market (7%), Symbian is well
placed to ride out no matter the movement in this market, simply because of the
volume of devices being shipped. Yes, their lowering of the per unit licensing costs is leading down the
commodity route; how they keep providing the support and the drive required to
keep Symbian OS at the forefront of mobile tech is something else to keep an
eye on.
So where does this leave the most important part of the equation, the consumer? Able to relate to and rely on their smartphone better than at any time previously. Yes there are some of us that will want the latest and greatest phone the second it comes out, but for the regular users, the predictable market conditions in all the areas that I've talked about means that they should have confidence in buying a smartphone today. It's not going to be radically superseded before 2009 at the earliest, and there are likely to be more useful and innovative smartphone software and internet services coming out.
Yes there will be surprises along the way, but the road-map is pretty much fixed. That means the programmers, developers and users of the new software know what to expect from the handsets - a nice mature market to let them play in and develop even more cool stuff.
Ewan Spence, AllAboutSymbian, 19 Feb 2008