Topic Review (Newest First)
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| 08-11-2006 06:06 AM |
| N/A |
Quote:
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Originally Posted by stuclark
The Symbian licensees are currently: Arima (UIQ), Ben Q (UIQ), Fujitsu (FOMA), Lenovo (UIQ), LG Electronics (S60), Motorola (UIQ), Mitsubishi (FOMA), Nokia (S60 (S80 S90)), Panasonic (S60), Samsung (S60), Sharp (FOMA) and Sony Ericsson (UIQ).
That makes (unless I've got something wrong) 4 S60 licensees, 5 UIQ licensees and 3 FOMA licensees.
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Lenovo is an S60 licensee, not UIQ: http://www.s60.com/life/s60phones?pbId=244&dm_id=90
And not many new UIQ phones from Arima (was their device ever actually for sale?), BenQ or Motorola lately.
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| 07-11-2006 08:31 PM |
| langdona |
I wonder if this may in time lead to the IPO of Symbian?
One of the things that holds Symbian back is that its perceived to owned by Nokia even if that is not strictly the case. Also I can imagine some of the existing shareholders wanting to get rid of their Symbian holding because they are no longer actively pursuing the platform e.g. Siemens and Panasonic. Sales are increasing and the company is doing well. So it could be the right time to privatise the business and solve these issues.
However I can see Nokia being reluctant to allow the IPO of Symbian if it was still actively producing a UI that was in competition to S60. Future versions of the OS could be slanted to favour UIQ. Hence selling UIQ to SE could clear the path for privatisation?
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| 07-11-2006 04:39 PM |
| Rafe |
See here for my view. I think this is a very interesting step because it essentially commits Sony Ericsson to UIQ on Symbian. The interesting thing here is that the companies with more experience than any others from a technical viewpoin (espeically with smartphones) have chosen UI on Symbian. Between them they control 40-45% of the entire mobile phone market...
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| 07-11-2006 03:53 PM |
| martinharnevie |
No. Nokia is NOT controlling in Symbian. 47.9% is largest but not controlling. All the hoohaa when Psion pulled out was essentially about preventing Nokia from becoming controlling. SE said publicly that they would not continue with UIQ if Nokia became controlling. Nokia *can still* be outvoted. Furthermore, there are some governance rules on board level requiring, IIRC, 2/3rds majority for any changes in how Symbian is run.
I totally agree with Ewan's article earlier. There is something cool and settled in how Symbian is run today. The UIQ divesture proves it. There was no way Nokia could have blocked it even if they wanted. Instead, it makes sense therefore it was pursued. Full stop. The decision was not affected by shareholder politics.
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| 07-11-2006 03:48 PM |
| svdwal |
I don't see a difference between SE licensing UIQ to other phone manufacturers, and to Nokia licensing Avkon to other phone manufacturers.
And as long as the licensing terms don't change, there is little difference between paying a license fee to SE as compared to paying the same license fee to UIQ.
Besides, why would it be a problem that a limited number of manufacturers are using Symbian OS? If anything, Windows Mobile, Palm OS and Linux are not exactly used by huge numbers of smartphone manufacturers, I would say.
If there's a smartphone OS having a problem, it would be Palm OS. It's sole licensee has started using Windows Mobile.
Sander van der Wal
www.mBrainSoftware.com
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| 07-11-2006 03:24 PM |
| elp |
[duplicate post, sorry]
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| 07-11-2006 02:55 PM |
| elp |
It might be a good move for SE but i'm not sure about the effect that this will have to the symbian ecosystem in general. One of the main problem of Symbian at the moment is the very limited number of manufacturers actually using it. Nokia is doing S60 phones, SE UIQ phones and that's about it. Previous attempts from other manufacturers to use Symbian have all pretty much failed. LG and Samsung are trying once again, we'll see what's going to happen.
But if i wanted tomorrow to build a phone running UIQ, the aquisition of UIQ by SE means that i would need to buy a license from SE to do that. In other words, for each handset that i would sell, i would have to reverse part of my profit to my main competitor. Not that encouraging, is it?
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| 07-11-2006 02:43 PM |
| stuclark |
According to Symbian, their shareholders are: Ericsson (15.6%), Nokia (47.9%), Panasonic (10.5%), Samsung (4.5%), Siemens (8.4%) and Sony Ericsson (13.1%) - so yes, Nokia does have a controlling interest in terms of percentages.
The Symbian licensees are currently: Arima (UIQ), Ben Q (UIQ), Fujitsu (FOMA), Lenovo (UIQ), LG Electronics (S60), Motorola (UIQ), Mitsubishi (FOMA), Nokia (S60 (S80 S90)), Panasonic (S60), Samsung (S60), Sharp (FOMA) and Sony Ericsson (UIQ).
That makes (unless I've got something wrong) 4 S60 licensees, 5 UIQ licensees and 3 FOMA licensees.
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| 07-11-2006 02:22 PM |
| krisse |
"Symbian is (effectively) owned by Nokia. "
A lot of people say this, but is it really true?
Nokia only has a minority stake in Symbian, even if it is by far the largest shareholder. They tried to take a majority stake in Symbian when Psion sold their shares, but the other owners of Symbian prevented the sale taking place as it violated the terms of the agreement under which they all set up Symbian in the first place.
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| 07-11-2006 02:05 PM |
| Bassey |
Quote:
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Originally Posted by stuclark
Interesting move. I too don't see quite what the point of it is, unless SE are going to leverage their ownership of UIQ to make sure the interface develops along the lines they want, rather than what any other licensee may want.
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Symbian is (effectively) owned by Nokia. I can imagine the UIQ team might be having all sorts of problems obtaining funding for the development of UIQ. By purchasing the comapany, SE can ensure that whatever funding it sees fit is made available to develop the UI. You never know, they might even get within six months of a release date! 
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| 07-11-2006 01:31 PM |
| krisse |
"Wishful thinking on my part? I hope not."
They already recently used UIQ in one of their Walkman phones, that's arguably the most mainstream Symbian model released so far if you consider the brand it was under. I wouldn't be surprised if SE did start using UIQ more widely.
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| 07-11-2006 11:57 AM |
| JimH |
Licensing fees?
What was price of a UIQ license for a phone? 1.5-2 USD?
My rough sums imply that SE must be intending to sell at least 10-15 million UIQ handsets a year for this deal to make hard commercial sense. That certainly implies they're looking to use UIQ3 in their mainstream phones.
Wishful thinking on my part? I hope not.
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| 07-11-2006 11:23 AM |
| krisse |
If there is a huge burst of new UIQ phones, that would be excellent news for Symbian, it would be bound to increase its market share even further.
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| 07-11-2006 11:21 AM |
| jah |
So looks like the rumour of 6 UIQ devices in development at SE are probably close to the mark...so we should see more and more Smartphones from SE, perhaps the successor to the K800i will use UIQ...we live in interesting times...
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| 07-11-2006 11:05 AM |
| martineden |
Price about $66 millions
Price about $66 millions according to rumours at
http://what.se/article.asp?id=4736
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